Clown Girl and Ninja Turtle
by Kyn
Summary: Confined to the sewers, thirteen-year-old Hamato Sandro really needs a sibling. Or a friend. Anybody his own size, really. Some backup against overprotective uncles and parents. But while breaking the rules and going topside, he bumps into 'Wildcard,' who is plucky and laughtastic, with throwing knives and a delightedly manic smile.
1. An Unexpected Meeting

[Author's Note] I don't stick to any particular canon; I mix and match the movies & cartoons lore. We're about to meet both our titular protagonists...

* * *

It was midnight, and she was running. Not _from_ anything, or _after_ anything, but for the joy of it. She hopped from rooftop to rooftop, clearing the jumps with a certainty—a peace of mind—which other folk never got to depend on. Life was _alive_ while she was moving: If she was ever too tired, she'd know, and if she was ever off-balance, she'd _know_ , and she feared nothing up above the world.

Most people probably had no idea how _big_ traffic lights were, for the same reason the moon looked roughly the same size as the sun. But when she was tight-roping across the street intersection, fourteen feet above hard pavement, on cords sturdy and thick beneath her feet, she could see the lights were three and a half feet tall. At thirteen (and still waiting on a growth spurt that might never come) she was only taller than them by another foot and a half. And ya know what else was funny? The mono-directional nature of the light meant she could stand right on top of one and _still_ be invisible!

The wind picked up. She lunged forward and grabbed the heavy support cable with both hands, and swung under it as she folded her knees about it in a safety clamp. She'd monkey her way the rest of the distance! Monkey, monkey, monkey! She reached the pole at the end, slid halfway down, and found a nice fire escape to alight on. There! Safe as a bug in a rug. She plopped down, kicked up her feet, and nursed on some Gatorade.

Did she have anything to eat? Phooey, she needed to find some kind of midnight snack. That would probably require putting regular pants and her hoodie back on, hmm. Decisions, decisions.

A loud noise had her leaping to her feet.

 _Gunshots!_ They weren't coming from Cashew's, the dive bar down the street. They were coming from _overhead_ and somewhere to the north. She whirled about in wide-eyed curiously and then quickly unzipped her backpack and stuffed the water back in. She grabbed a few implements and strapped them into her outfit, and then hung the backpack up on an overhead light to leave it there as she stepped over the escape railing.

 _Move move move!_ She hurried along the shoddy copper wall pipes, darting down the alleyway. _Fence ahead?_ Her gaze wove up the wall and she followed it and hit the brick at a horizontal wall-run. _Push_. She shoved off the brick, toed the fence, pushed off of it, and landed on the ground beyond. She hit an intersection of tightly crammed buildings. _Left?_ Crack! The commotion was moving. She bolted to try and intercept whatever was happening. She crossed a narrow street, and slid into another alleyway. _Where?_ She just wanted to see! Catch a glimpse of all the excite-!

A premonition crested over her and she skid to a halt and backpedaled, pulling fresh throwing knives from her sleeves. Only an instant later, a heavy and thunderous boom hit the roof of the dumpster just in front of her, and dented it, and then slid off. Her skin prickled at the nearness.

" _Ow-!_ " a soft (and almost guilty-sounding) mutter clued her in that the 'heavy' thing had been a person, and probably male, and _possibly_ young, though the darkness nearly occluded her view of him. He wasn't even on his feet yet when two slender men appeared over the edge of the roof. One had a gun and fired off a heavy slug into the alleyway (though he missed), while the other jumped down—with his hand and boot against the brick to slow his fall!—to pursue on foot. Betimes he'd cleared a three story decent like it was no more than child's play, and drawn a katana from the sheathe at his side, she had deduced the only logical explanation:

 _Clearly_ , they were _evil ninjas_. They were wearing black. They had black masks without proper eye holes. Their outfits were martial arts outfits. Every visible melee weapon was Japanese. Nobody was dressed in a bat outfit for clarification purposes.

Evil. Ninjas.

Their poor, dumpster-denting quarry rolled upright, clearly trying to bolt deeper into the alleyway; But high up above him, the long-barreled shotgun tracked his head, and she could already see a messy future.

Whelp. That left only one thing to do: "Lookie Here!" she shouted gleefully to startle every single last remaining person in the alleyway.

Then came the _throw_ : Fingers clasped the handle of her first knife, elbow wove first back then forward, arm pulled the hand in from the side, body tilted to angle everything up, fingers brushed the handle in a sliding release...! The knife left her fingers, light as a silver feather, swinging out of the alleyway as its trajectory corrected from a ninety-degree angle to a full forward stab. It had a long distance to clear heading upward to the roof, and she was aiming for a small target.

Next, second throw already coming: Fingers pinched the blade itself, weapon held upright with the tip down, elbow wove to pull the full usage of the arm muscles into the snap. Two hundred and seventy degree flip. The knife left her hand like a baseball, rotating handle over tip as it cleared the shorter distance.

Th- _thuck_ the collisions overlapped, each of them as sharp as the other, one slicing through a throat, the other landing between ribs. Two bodies listed, began to collapse, one in a messy sputter of red. She twisted about, towards the street, where no footsteps gave away that she was about to be 'surprised.' She plucked a third knife from a sheathe on her abdomen: thicker, heavier, because her _future reflections_ were softer-edged.

Another martial artist with a black mask slid into view of the alleyway, and by then her knife was already airborne. The blade hit into something like a leather breastplate, but sank deep, and her target twisted as he fell. Three white spaces in the future. Three bodies.

 _Wow_.

She stood for there a moment, heart hammering wildly, head cocked as she listened and looked for reflections. No more danger? Not in the near future, anyway. _Me: 3, Evil Ninjas: 0! Woohoo!_ Time to celebrate; where was the nearest ice cream store!? But her brows furrowed and she turned about just in time to hear the heavy, hollow-sounding scrape of a manhole cover being removed.

" _Excuse_ me!" she shouted indignantly at the black alleyway. "Are you actually trying to escape into _a sewer_ without even stopping to _thank_ me!?"

The scrape paused. A meek, male voice responded: "Um..."

She leaned back and deflated a little. Whoever this was, they didn't sound particularly _old_ despite what the dented dumpster had to say about the matter. What had this dude done to anger people in masks with samurai swords and shotguns? "Because that would be very rude of you," she continued her reproach, grumpy but curious.

"Thank you," he answered tightly, and again she thought that his voice sounded pretty young.

"Well," she cleared her throat and tried to be less mean. "You're welcome. Who _are_ you?"

"I... ...need to go."

"What, just like that?" She wrinkled her nose, for it was _she_ who was normally trying to avoid other people. Holy cheese puffs, a role reversal! _Code Red! Code Red! You're probably talking to a super hero's kid! He might have parents around here somewhere! Act natural and flee! Confess everything to dad! Dodge out of town, we can go live in Mexico again! Aaah! (Oh my god, I'm so curious, Who is this, What a nice voice, Who were the Evil Ninjas, What is happening) AHHHHH! ! !_

"Uh. Yeah. Goodbye?"

Blink blink. She swallowed back on hysterical adrenaline, opened her mouth, and words fell out: "Look, as one peculiar kid out at midnight to another, I should tell you that you _probably_ can't surprise me." That was a perfectly true statement.

He made a sound like a laugh-that-wasn't. "Doubt it."

 _Rack your brain._ "Does that mean you're a... mutant or something?" _Jean Grey's school for special children is just up the Hudson, after all. Let it never be said that we lack for mutants!_

He was silent, but she was nearly sure he hadn't escaped down into the sewer without her hearing something. Those ladder rungs made a loud echo when one climbed down them, and she knew from experience. A smile broke out on her face.

"Well, whoever you are, you're not going to scare me." _Yes, that's it! Don't run away, strange, dumpster-denting sewer-child! Talk to me! Please?_ "What's your name?"

"...Sandro," he supplied.

"'Sandro?'" Her nose wrinkled. "Like the painter? Sandro Botticelli?"

He reacted with startled incredulity: "It's a perfectly common name! You just know a bunch of _painters'_ names off the top of your head for some reason?"

"Ha! Look here mister: I just _killed_ three people to save your sorry ass, and you want to critique my _Jeopardy_ skills at this juncture?!"

She heard a scrape, followed by the tinny, wobbling echoes of the manhole cover as it slipped back into place. _No!_ But it was too late, and he'd used the cover of her sass to escape. _No no no. Oh... Poop._ She swore under her breath, looked away, and raised a hand to rub at the back of her neck and hood. _Nobody likes me. That's fair, I guess. Randomly murdering people in alleyways: Not a great way to make friends. Frowny-face emoticon._

But, a few second later, her conclusion was proven wrong, because he suddenly stepped out into the street lighting, and she looked to him excitedly. He was _tall_. She wasn't quite five feet tall, and he was probably just shy of six and _towered_ over her. He wore a heavy gray trench coat with a high collar and a hood, and his face was too shadowed to make out anything. He even kept his hands in his pockets. She could tell his shoulders were broad at least, and his limbs didn't look ungainly, and she could see the edges of some kind of curved weapon strapped against his back.

"Happy?" he asked, and for all that he was the _size_ of an adult, his voice still sounded burred like a boy's did midway through puberty.

She furrowed brows at him, confused. "How... old are you?"

He scuffed a foot for a moment before answering. "Thirteen."

Her eyes widened. "You can't be _thirteen_!" she squawked, loudly. "You're _enormous_!"

His body language seemed to fold backwards a bit in surprise, but then he said in a recalcitrant tone, " _You_ haven't seen my father."

She gaped at him a moment. But he was being earnest, wasn't she? She straightened up and beamed at him. " _I'm_ thirteen," she laughed. "Wow. The height difference is sort of hilarious. I mean. Um." She rubbed at the back of her hood again. "Do you want to get a coke and some food, maybe, and you can tell me what I stepped in?"

"I can't go into _a restaurant..._ " Sandro muttered, though he glanced around at the bodies she/they had left in the alleyway and seemed to agree it was a bit of a mess and deserved an explanation.

She shrugged and looked at the ground. "There's a twenty-four hour pizza stand down the street. They have a bunch outdoor seating, but it's not tremendously well-lit cause no one goes there after dark." She peeked up at him hopefully. "Would that work? I'll pay..."


	2. The Start of Something New

[Author's Note]  
The turtle family apparently lives in Jersey City instead of New York City, though the two cities face each-other on the Hudson.

* * *

The neon sign overhead, clouded by moths, highlighted the only business aside from the corner gas station that was open at one in the morning.

"What'll it be?" asked Lawrence, one of the two acne-spotted and sleepy-eyed young men who had the graveyard shift at Pat's Pizza Hut (No brand infringement intended), and who didn't care how long she stayed out past curfew so long as she tipped well.

"Two large pizzas and a two-liter bottle of Doctor Pepper," she said, before leaning over past the side of the shack (dramatically, and holding onto it for balance, with one foot outstretched). "Hey what toppings do you want?"

Her tall and trench-coated accomplice gave a non-committal shrug from where he was nearly invisible against the brick in the dim light. "I can eat very nearly anything on a pizza."

"Okay then." She pushed herself back upright. "Mushrooms, green peppers, red onions, cherry tomatoes, streaks of that artsy spinach condiment you guys put on white pizza, and—really—just _pile_ the cheese on please. Last time was a little light. I'm a glutton."

"Yeah, whatever," he accepted, and rung up a proposed price on the cash register. It was a bit higher than normal for the 'extra extra extra cheese.' He raised a brow at her to make sure she wasn't going to fuss about it. She gave him a thumbs-up that earned her a smirked, and then partitioned out a fair 20% tip for him.

"Hey, d'you guys ever get robbed out here at night?" she asked him after a bit, since she had to wait for the pizza and she wanted to know about the joint's security cameras, if possible.

"Nah. Maybe we used to," Lawrence the pizza boy tapped the glass that separated the two of them. It's only gap was the one at counter level, through which money and pizza passed. "It's shatterproof and bullet resistant, if you'd believe that. The police even gave us our own panic button, and we've a cam on the front and back. Used to have a third but it's broken." He gestured behind him to where a fuzzy black and white screen showed off the live feeds. _Bingo._

She laughed. "That's kinda funny. Why so much security?" The cameras had a noticeable gap in their field of view which left the majority of the stand's seating blacked out but, then again, there were no openings to the 'hut' on that side. _Perfect._

"Dunno. I think we were a honey pot trap for drug trades awhile back, like about ten years ago," Lawrence the pizza boy continued conversationally before picking his phone back up. "No one comes near the place except for pizza these days."

"Cool."She left him to his own little life, particularly as it seemed he had some grueling levels of Candy Crush he needed to concentrate for, and instead she skipped about the building to wait for the food with Sandro.

"What are you wearing?" was her first question.

"A coat?" he wondered aloud, but she pointed at the curves of metal she could see over his shoulder. "Oh. They're kamas." He reached back, and teased one up out of its holster, and then lowered it so she could see. It looked like a miniature scythe, with a handle no longer than a person's forearm, and a long and tapering blade set at a perpendicular angle.

"Are they Asian?" she speculated, touching the curved tip. They were certainly razor-sharp.

"Japanese." He was wearing gloves, she also noticed; because, of course, he needed to be completely impenetrable to the eyes.

Calmly sharing lethal objects in close proximity to one another was an admittedly unusual way of making friends, but one supposed it proved neither of them had any hostile intentions towards one another. She lifted a hand and rotated the wrist, and slowly pulled out one of her simplest throwing knives. She offered it to him, and he hesitated a moment before lifting a hand to take it.

"They're about as simple as weapons get," she explained. "Just naked metal filed to a point. The only thing special about them is their center of balance."

He knew what she meant, and balanced the implement on a finger. "I... didn't really thank you," he said after a moment, as he offered the knife back to her. "You were... fast in helping me. Like really fast. I would have been shot again, if not caught or killed."

Wait a minute. " _Again_?"

"Eh..." He didn't answer her, and instead just lifted his kama to replace it into its holster.

But just then their pizzas were done, so she turned about and hurried to obtain them. There was a small part of her that worried Sandro would flee in the interim (for someone so big, he was surprisingly quiet), but when she rounded the building again she found he was merely deciding where he wanted to sit. She hurried up to him and placed the boxes and cups down, and pushed a set to him.

"I hope you like having your pizza toppings decided on for you," she grinned as she sat down and opened up her pie to inspect it. "Oh-ho. Lawrence did not let me down this time. It is like a little _bath tub_ of cheese...!"

Sandro scooped up his first piece and leaned over to take a bite. She stiffened incredulously.

"You are going to eat your pizza... with a _hood_ on...?" she slowly asked him. He paused. "That sounds really messy and like your gloves are also never going to get the grease out of them, but I suppose I should admire your dedication."

Sandro seemed to stare pointedly at her. She leaned back an inch at the implicit accusation. Then she lifted her hands and pulled her hoodie hood down, and with it her catsuit hood. She moussed her curls to make them fluff up again, shook hair out of her face, and then obtained a slice of pizza for herself. "Bon Appétit."

 _Om nom nom nom._ Praise Cheesus, it was a good pizza.

Sandro stared at her until she'd very nearly finished her first slice. Then he set his pizza down and stripped his gloves one at a time.

His skin was off-colored and maybe the wrong sort of tan, and his hands weren't structured exactly right. But when he folded his collar down, and pulled back the hood, he revealed a face that could not have passed for human. To being with, he lacked hair or ears. The eyes, nose, and mouth were all in the correct position, that was true, but the skin was a sickly beige mixed with whorls of brown, and lines divided some of it into the appearance of large, boxy scales.

But there was more: his features formed an axe blade's shape from the tip of his nose to the point of his chin; there was no _underneath_ to the nose or nostrils, no real lips, no indentation above the chin, just a smooth, sharp curve. His broad mouth was mostly comprised of two sharp ridges, one for the top jaw and one for the bottom, nearly flush with one-another where they overlapped, and they curved slightly upward in the middle. Only the corners of his mouth seemed supple, or like they could curve into facial expressions.

Was he a reptile? He must have been. He wasn't so incredibly inhuman as to be ugly, exactly. His overall face contour was pretty human (at least from the front). His cheeks were angular, the jaw was solid, and the chin was a 'V'. His eyes were fairly normal in shape and form, though the irises were grainy copper and gold inscribed in yellow. He reminded her more of an anthropomorphized dragon than, say, Voldemort.

"You are staring,"

Wow, watching that mouth move was amazing. The upper and lower parts of the 'beak' slid against each other like a parrot's did, and demonstrated he had no trouble whatsoever in speaking. Wait, he'd just said something.

"Um-!" she fumbled to recover. "You are worth staring at! Or wait, I-I mean-!" Her face turned bright red. "I meant to say I'm sorry!" she blurted, and then panicked because she wasn't sure if that was sufficient apology. She covered her face in shame. "I'm sorry," she repeated more calmly, and much more calmly than she felt.

He stared at her for a moment, and she felt her face must have been completely red. Then he picked his pizza back up, and she looked up through her fingers to have the pleasure of watching that beak tear clear through half a pizza slice.

All the heat fell out of her face. She lowered her hand and really did stare at him.

"What?" he grumbled self-consciously.

"You're a turtle," she realized.

He coughed and nearly lost his pizza. Then he turned full-on to face her, straightened, and frowned in wide-eyed surprise. "You can tell that just from my _face_?"

"No other reptiles have beaks," she murmured. There was nothing ovoid or rounded to his shape, nothing one might expect of a turtle. If he had a shell under that coat, it must have followed the inverted-triangular shape of a man; his waist looked too small for it to be otherwise. Wait, stop speculating. She rapidly shook her head to clear it of any and all expectations, and then politely turned back to her pizza. "Well!" she cleared her throat. "Now at least I have an appreciation for why you won't go into a restaurant."

"You aren't freaked out?" he tested slowly.

"Nah, you're not that scary, Sandro," she winked at him. "Tell me who the hell I just ended up killing for you, though."

"They're... they belong to a 'clan,'" he raised his fingers to do air-quotes, "of ninjutsu practitioners who run most of the organized crime south of Manhatten. If you get mixed up in anything here, you'll run into them. They're the upper-tier 'mafia' of Jersey." He took another bite of his pizza (at which point he'd eaten the whole slice in two bites), and reached for another. "Are you not from around here?"

"No. Just moved," she explained.

"Where are you from?"

 _Gotham, but she couldn't say it._ "Gotham," she answered. _Wait..._

"Gotham?" He ate his next slice of pizza just as fast as his first, and the way he chewed suggested he _did_ have molar teeth in there somewhere. "I thought everyone from Gotham was crazy."

She perked up and grinned at him. "Is that our reputation? Well. What says I'm not crazy?"

He seemed to reflect on how they'd met. "I don't need a demonstration. Your family come here for work or something?"

"My dad and I move around a lot," she gave him.

"What's your name?"

"Oh." She hesitated. What was her name? What was the name of this masked and hooded character of hers, who had rescued kidnapped children and who—apparently—ran about at night having lethal tiffs with the local mafia? (Her father was going to ground her till she was eighteen if he found out.) She couldn't use anything that would connect her back to her place of residence had put her family at risk...! But even as she fumbled for an answer, she thought about the dog-eared lucky playing card she always carried. "I'm... _Wildcard_ ," she said.

"Huh." He reached for his third slice of pizza. "I gave you my real name," he remarked almost defensively.

 _True._ "You're probably a little harder to look up in an address book and stalk," she sassed back.

"Yeah because I'm totally going to stalk the loud-mouthed Gotham girl whose clothing is filled with knives."

She pouted. "Well you might tell someone about me. That could put me in danger."

"I'm not even allowed to be up here on the surface. You think I'm going to confess to getting in a fight—and needing to be rescued by a complete stranger—just to tell someone about this weird kid I met? Yeah right."

"I'm... Ana," she admitted quietly. "Short for Anastasia. Anastasia Matilda Hamilton. So there, now we're not complete strangers anymore, right?"

He paused and peered at her uncertainly. By the look of him, he knew a trust-thing had definitely just occurred... but then one supposed this entire pizza-trip had been a 'trust-thing' for him, hadn't it? "Ana's a pretty name," he muttered at last, and then seemed to regret saying anything because he immediately went back to chowing down on pizza.

"Can you tell me about what places I should avoid up here?" she inquired. "I mean, if I don't want to get in trouble with this 'clan' you've mentioned, and I don't. I made a promise."

"Well..."

They ended up talking for a good two hours straight, just 'business' really, all about the surrounding area and which neighborhoods or establishments or roads were 'deep' clan territory and which areas were simply claimed by them or by a smaller rival. Sandro certainly knew a lot about the city, given that he wasn't even supposed to be 'topside' (that was how he kept referring to it) at all. She guessed she knew the feeling; she sure knew a lot of stuff she oughtn't have known about the slums of Gotham, including where to find the lair of the mysterious and elusive Poison Ivy.

By the end, Anastasia ended up pushing him the remaining half of her pizza. It wasn't that she couldn't finish a large (she could absolutely finish a large) but the rate at which this boy could consume food was very nearly alarming, and besides he was clearly hungry and much bigger and would make ample use of the calories.

"Let me get some ice cream added to this order," she suggested once they were out of pizza and soda pop, and whilst he had paused speaking in an attempt to consider whether he could think of any more information. She returned to Lawrence to get four sticks of chocolate-plated ice cream, even though part of her was scared, again, that Sandro would disappear in her absence. But he didn't. And when she returned, she gave the bemused turtle three of the ice creams.

"You mentioned you made a promise to stay out of trouble?" Sandro prompted as he daintily bit into his ice cream. Anastasia couldn't help watching him eat. Sh'd honestly expected him to take the bar in just two bites, but then realized that probably would have caused a severe case of brain freeze.

"My dad," she explained. "I promised him I'd keep out of anything really dangerous."

"Your dad knows you wander around at night?"

"My dad taught me knives," she explained with a shrug. "He lets me get away with a lot."

Sandro frowned thoughtfully and then shook his head. "Man, I wish I had your luck."

"Are your parents going to worry about you?" she prompted gently.

"My parents are almost never home, but my uncles are pretty lax with watching me," he remarked dryly. "For which I seriously owe them, as being stuck in your own house is like living in a bird cage. As long as I don't get caught sneaking in or out, or need any buckshot pried out of my shell, I'm good. I've got it all timed pretty well."

Hmm. That was interesting. "I know someone like that: Who's 'stuck in a birdcage.'" Anastasia grimaced. "Her name's Willow. Her mom literally does not ever let her leave the house. Ever. Guess she's not as ballsy as we are, because she never puts her 'all' into trying to break the rules and get out. I sneak her fantasy books sometimes."

"That sounds awful. You get along with your dad, at least?"

"He feeds me," she joked. "I could love anyone who fed me. But yeah, my dad's good stuff."

"You're really lucky, you know that? You should look at people like me and like your friend Willow and never take your family for granted. I'd be dead meat if my dad caught me up here sticking my snout in trouble." Some ice cream fell on his finger as the chocolate cracked apart, and he licked it off. She watched, because everything about Sandro was simply fascinating to look at, but then caught herself before her staring got weird and politely averted her eyes until she could be trusted to behave normally again.

"I guess you're right," she thought aloud. "I guess I never looked at it like that, wondering how my life would have been really different if my father had been different." Her life could have been _very_ different indeed. The specific shade of clown that had raised her had been a very special tightrope-act. "Does your family school you?"

"Yeah. I'm 'advanced,'" he explained, with an indolent roll of the eyes that said exactly what he thought of that. "What about you?"

"I read really slow and suck at grammar and writing," she explained. "My dad pulled me out of school when my grades tanked, and now I'm under stern orders to get back into the A-B range. He's a good tutor, though."

Sandro glanced at her in surprise. "You don't sound it. I mean, you don't sound sound stupid, or like some flunky who'd just let their grades go because they didn't care about them."

"I'm not stupid! I-I sorta cared! I just... got really bored in school is all," she confessed with a blush. "I was always better at math and science anyway, but it wasn't like I even paid attention to the teacher. I kept falling asleep. Anyway, it's better now. My dad gives me audio tapes to listen to, and I can set the pace, and usually I can move faster than the curriculum. Except with language arts."

"You got a reading disability or something?"

"Eh... Something like that. It's really frustrating because I like learning just about anything and—I mean, you noticed I could name Italian Renaissance painters off the top of my head, right?—so it's not like any topic could possibly bore me. But when I try to read a book, the words go all over the place, and one sentence blurs into the next." She sighed heavily. "So don't take for granted that you're 'advanced' if you can spend more than fifteen minutes on Wikipedia or TVTropes or whatever without your eyes crossing." She paused. "Wait, you have the internet, right?"

"Of course _I have the internet_...! I live in a sewer, not in a prehistoric dimension!"

Anastasia burst out laughing. "Do you have a phone?" she inquired.

Sandro blinked and then sat up and rummaged in a pocket, and produced the requested device. She hopped up eagerly to dig her own out of her backpack, and then quickly swiped her way into her contacts menu.

"Can I have your number?" she hoped.

"...Yeah, sure." He unlocked his phone and passed it to her, and she made a contact entry for each of them. "Sorta odd to think, but I've never used it for actually _calling_ anyone. It's for games and emergencies..."

"Well now you have a reason!" she announced with a grin as she passed his phone back. Her new entry said 'Free Pizza.' He glanced at it and laughed. "Is that camouflaged enough?" she asked.

"Yeah. I'll need to disable the ringtone though," he remarked, and set to doing so, and this sort of proved he wasn't going to tell anyone about meeting her, or what her name was.

"Turn your texting notifications to silent," she suggested. "I'll ping you if I'm outta the house, and you can just give me a call if it's 'safe.' Or, if you're grounded, we can just compete mindlessly at online games."

"What games do you play?"

* * *

[Author's Note] If you caught that Sandro must have five fingers for her not to comment, good job! Must be mom's DNA, smoothing things out. In other news, my turtles have beaks. Though have you ever seen a red-eared slider and noticed the teenaged mutant ninja turtles look... nothing like red sliders? Heck the beak of a slider's turns up in the middle like a wise old cat face :3 not _down_ like a parrot/bird beak.


	3. Smiles

[Author's Note] Why yes, the TMNT comics do exist in this universe. Probably the 2012 TV show, too. And I'm going to bet money someone we know is the illustrator.

* * *

If there was any real news coverage on the three 'ninjas' she'd killed once the bodies were found, Anastasia was sure her dad would somehow figure it all out. As a precaution, she'd made sure not to leave any of her knives at the scene of the crime. That might save her ass.

Anastasia entered the house quietly at about four in the morning, and closed the door just as quietly behind her. She hurried across the living room. Her father's bedroom door was cracked open, and the space beyond was empty. She hoped this meant he'd been out on his own business, as opposed to shadowing her. If he'd seen her run headlong towards the sound of gunshots, there was nothing she could possibly say that would get him to forgive her.

Ana had felt the underlying edge in his tone of voice when he'd been talking to her back at St. Mary's steeple. He'd meant it. His face had darkened at her fearlessness. She needed to be more careful, or her father would get mad, and she was pretty sure she didn't want to know what her father looked like while mad at her. Ever. She oughtn't take him and his leniency for granted. She needed to be more careful.

But she'd done the right thing that night. Even if it had been by sheer luck.

Anastasia climbed up the little metal spiral staircase that led to her bedroom, which was the only room on the second floor of the A-Frame. The 'hall' outside her door was just a balcony overlooking the living room. It was nice to have a real house, especially such a cute one. She slipped into her bedroom, tossed her backpack to the side, and then flopped back onto the bed with a heavy sigh.

For awhile, she just lay there watching the ceiling, still in two layers of hood and dressed from head to toe in hidden gear. Then a smile wiggled slowly over her mouth, and grew broader and broader. She wasn't even sure what exactly she was smiling at. But oh how she smiled: from ear to ear! Then she started laughing, and she lifted her hands and pressed her palms over her eyes, as if the pressure could somehow keep from getting any louder. She was so tired, and so happy. She couldn't remember ever having been so happy.

Could they hang out again? Would they? They had each others' numbers, and both of them were frequently bored and had copious hours whilst left to their own devices in a given day. But what if he had second thoughts? Nonsense, he was already sneaking to the surface, wasn't he? Plus she could easily smuggle herself down into the sewers if she had to, and he'd explained that he wasn't forbidden from 'leaving the house' so much as he was prohibited from going 'topside.'

Well, okay, but what if Sandro had second thoughts about her? Anastasia was loud and laughed at inappropriate times and had a caustic sense of humor, and she was bossy, too, and she kept getting caught staring at him. But... he'd stayed and talked to her for hours and hours despite having numerous opportunities to slink off or even excuse himself. He'd started whole units of conversation himself.

Could they hang out again tomorrow?

... Every day?

Okay, okay she was getting way ahead of herself. She probably ought to keep her head low for the next few days, if only to get over this weird giddy feeling and keep from tipping off her dad that she'd done anything stupid. Arg. It was like there was lightning in her limbs. She shook her arms out to disperse the adrenaline.

At last Anastasia sat up and started getting ready for bed. As she set aside her night suit and weapons, she spied the latest edition of her favorite comic book series, still sitting out on the little reading desk beside her bed. She paused, startled by the orange Nickelodeon logo. Then she picked it up, and gathered up the rest of her comics, and she filed them into a tidy bundle and wrapped them up with a rubber band, and she stuffed them into a shoe-box and tucked them under her bed and back away into the far corner.

She crawled into bed and pulled the blankets up over her head, and drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.

* * *

A world away, Sandro slipped quietly into the front door of his family's unusual home, and silently leaned into the wall that he might gracefully take off his shoes. In the distance he could hear his youngest uncles practicing in the dojo. He rinsed his soles off, and settled the shoes in their place. He crept to his bedroom doorway, and folded himself silently inside.

No sooner had he eased his own door shut than he heard the front door to the lair open, signalling his eldest uncle had returned from patrol. Sandro glanced at his alarm clock to mark the time and then unbuckled the holster for his kamas and gingerly set the weapons upon his dresser, listening to various uncles moving around outside in the kitchen. He peeled out of his coat and made sure it had stayed clean of slime. It went to hang up on the back of his door. He sniffed at his gloves. Did they smell of oil? Pizza? No. They got neatly folded up and placed into the pockets of his coat, for next time he went out 'exploring the sewers.'

Sandro turned and walked about the room, peering into the aquariums of his (large) collection of flushed ball pythons and terrapins, to make sure no one was in distress or needed feeding. The tortoise woke up to greet him, and he peeled a banana for the little guy. At last he came to the head of his bed, and to the elderly dwarf crocodile where she'd fallen asleep on top of his pillow. She lifted her head for a good eyebrow scratching. He dutifully supplied as he sat himself slowly down beside her.

Had that just happened? All of it? Any of it?

Sandro was technically allowed out to roam the sewers, rails, and maintenance tunnels, and his family had even mandated that he bring a 'disguise' and remained armed, _just in case_ , provisions which had (ironically) made it possible to sneak topside. But Sandro usually tried to avoid worrying anyone with his comings and goings, and he didn't want to talk to anyone right now, or answer their innocent questions. He might have seemed 'out-of-it' and given away this secret.

This _secret_. He could count the number of human faces he'd seen up close and in person for more than an instant on just one hand. If he added in mutant faces, his complete collection of acquaintances might have _possibly_ spilled past two hands. And while it had been dark, there had been enough ambient light to make out that the color of her hair was blonde and her face was sharp-featured. What drove home her realness was his memory of infrared—the color of heat—oozing out from within her; it was something he never got to see when watching people on computer screens or televisions.

Had they actually talked about ninja clans, throwing knives, parents, pizza, _everything_ for hours and hours? She hadn't, like, gotten bored? His only proof the conversation had happened was that _he wasn't hungry_. Because he'd eaten an entire large pizza and three ice creams, and drank an entire two-liter bottle of soda.

 _She likes Dr. Pepper, and veggie pizza, and unnecessarily large amounts of cheese._

Sandro dug out his phone and opened his contacts and, sure enough, nestled beside emergency numbers for family and close family friends, lay 'Free Pizza.' He tapped it to see the unfamiliar number, and to memorize it. It had really happened. He sawed his beak a moment, and then felt the smile leak out to the corner of his mouth, where it overtook the whole of his face. It _had_ really happened. And she'd said she'd send him a text when she was free. Did that mean they might be able to... to hang out again? _Tomorrow_?

He leaned back against the wall, grinning dumbly to himself, cradling the phone in both hands. Then he decided to lay down, and kicked up his legs, and leaned his head back atop his croc just like she was a pillow (since she didn't seem inclined on moving). She did not disabuse him of the notion that she was a pillow. He reached up to rub under her chin, and grinned stupidly at his phone for a very long time. At last he switched it off, and dropped it against his chest, and rocked comfortably side to side upon his shell. He dare not laugh, not with uncles just outside, not even when it would surely be harmless (who would investigate a _laugh_?) because the secret was just too exciting.

 _'Wildcard' suites her._


	4. Roger That

Apparently, dead ninja bodies were not uncommon in New Jersey.

The police had discovered them by the next morning, but the story was so unexciting it merited nothing more than a brief mention on the news strip on the bottom of all the state's prominent stations: 'Three bodies found in apparent outbreak of inter-gang violence. If more info is known, contact police.'

Anastasia Hamilton tried to decide whether she felt relief... or concern that someone could probably get away with murder in this city so long as they had the brains to dress their victim up in a 'clan' uniform afterwards. It probably meant the city had a high level of 'costumed' activity under the surface, which meant super heroes and super villains tended to check each other and the police tried to worry about more mundane happenings

But, anyway, if her father knew she'd been up to no good the evening before, he gave no sign, which was a blessing. There were dark circles under his eyes and she wondered what time he'd gotten home, but wasn't so bold as to ask how his evening had gone when her own had been over-eventful. She did shoot him a few curious looks, lest he grow suspicious of her.

Soon after breakfast came schoolwork, for which she needed to focus. Focus. ...Focus... F... Ludicrous! How was she possibly supposed to focus? She wanted to jump out of her skin and throw glitter everywhere. She wanted out, out into the streets; she wanted to play, she wanted to exercise, she wanted to go crazy! Too many thoughts! Turtles! Arg. Wait. Wait, wait, wait, she might be able to think up a strategy for focusing. She might have a trick up her sleeve.

"Please read this to me," she begged her father after nearly an hour of suffering in agitated silence. "I can't. I need to hear a voice."

"You should take the chance to practice," her father countered. "You've been improving."

"I just can't focus today," she moaned truthfully like the spoiled child she was. "My head keeps going in circles. Help me."

Mr. Hamilton yielded and came over to sit with her. She breathed a little easier, and watched the words as he spoke. Her father had a very nice speaking voice, low and strong. Well, er, when he wasn't agitated or in costume, of course. She listened closely, and some of her anxiety and stress melted out as she began to imagine the scenes framed by the words. Her fingers itched over her note-taking paper. Occasionally she stopped him so she could compose a summary point and write it down. He absently scratched her back as she worked.

She was only handicapped when it came to stringing together whole paragraphs of meaning. All that black text on white paper, so visually indistinct for line after line after line, messed her up. Chemistry and math were easy; her short-term memory was pretty good at protecting small bites of discrete information from being scrambled by her foresight.

Betimes school was over, it was obvious her father was tired. What a blessing; now he wasn't likely to notice all this extra energy she had! "I'm thinking of going to the Rec and putting myself through the usual," she said. "But you look like you need a nap. You okay?"

"Mn." He agreed as he blanked vacantly and heavy-lidded off at nothing. Acid eyes lacked their usual luster. "You'll forgive me if I take the rest of day off?"

"Of course."

Anastasia guiltily wondered if she ought to eventually fess up to her mistakes with him. If she was the one to tell him, he might forgive her. Right? That same wouldn't be true if he found out through alternate means. She bit her lip, and hurried out the door.

...

* * *

Once at the recreation center, she trained at running, squats, sit-ups and pull ups, she pummeled a punching bag, she practiced her hand-stands, she tried anything and everything to get her energy out. After a bit she knew she simply needed a challenge, so she went to find the gymnastics room.

Anastasia played at the pommel horse until her arms were shaking and she simply couldn't lift her body up any longer. Pommel horses were different than uneven bars because they never allowed for any real rest; the gymnast had to hold their body perpendicular off the ground and swing their legs about or do handstands. That required a ton of arm strength. It was a good exercise for anyone who wanted to leap around a concrete jungle like Tarzan.

When she finally had to dismount she took some big gulps of water, and then ran through her list of favorite exercises. So much to do, and surely that would help shake her jitters.

She played on the balance beam before school let out for any of the city kids, because then it would become a very popular piece of equipment. After that were gymnastic floor exercises. Run, run, run, cartwheel, flip, roll. She didn't care what the other people practiced at; She didn't care that rolls weren't part of regular routines. She was imagining everything was dark and made of metal and concrete. She took some time with a punching bag again afterwards.

Anastasia appreciated how sparsely populated the recreation building was during daytime hours. She could play with everything, and never needed to wait her turn. Heck, she barely needed to acknowledge the existence of anyone else at all. She did have to track down some employees to spot her on some of the equipment, because she didn't want to be on the center's bad side.

She surmounted the rockwall, starting with the easy side first and then guzzled water and started on the hard. Her spotter was impressed. Much to her own disappointment, she didn't quite make it across the overhang of the hard side on her first try and—begrudgingly—had to admit to herself that she'd probably pushed herself a little too hard, too fast. She let go and waited fifteen minutes before trying again. This time, she made it around the hump.

And then, well, then she'd finished that, and checked everything off her training regiment in rather record time...

... Which left her with what?

No she was bored.

Really bored.

And still hyper-energetic.

* * *

Anastasia went out to the kids playground and dangled back and forward along the monkey bars for a bit, trying to settle her thoughts. She saw a snail atop the bars, looking quite out of place and probably frying in the hot sun. She looped herself up beside it, and took a seat, and sprinkled a little water on the small creature as she maneuvered it into her shadow. Poor little guy. Or girl? Or in-between? Weren't snails hermaphroditic?

As she waited for her miniature new 'friend' to recover, she pulled out her phone. She swung her legs back and forth and mindlessly refreshed her game scores. She tapped every interesting thumbnail on YouTube, and then grew board before any video finished playing. She scrolled her contacts list up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

She stopped the scroll of the contact list, her thumb hovering over the newest entry.

No! Be patient! Don't be weird, Ana. Wait a day, at least! Don't blow this. Be patient!

Back to mindless YouTubing, then, in a vain effort to distract herself or think up something else to do. It was too bright out to be running on rooftops, but perhaps she might go to the skate park? Or the rink? Or anywhere? Maybe she just needed some food. Blah.

"Hey," came a feminine twang from below, as several girls in practice outfits came up beside the playground. "You're supposed to climb under those." A companion added, "Yeah, if you're a kid. Stop squatting on the Gym, you'll scare everyone else off."

"Find someone to stop me," Ana replied, and wondered why it was that she only had these sorts of problems with girls. It was like girls always self-policed a conformation to social structure, and Ana was a voluntary outcast. But, then, Ana probably oughtn't be so quick to judge people when—after only a quick glance—she'd already dismissed them and had no intention of being nice to them either.

"You're just a bratty little troublemaker aren't you?"

Anastasia grinned to herself. "The worst sort," she agreed. "So don't mess with me."

Yeah, Anastasia probably oughtn't be so quick to judge people if that was her opener towards them. Unlike boys, who'd usually heed the 'unfriendly' signals she displayed, the girls stayed there to argue with, insult, and shame her into submission.

Anastasia ignored them up until one got close with a gleam in her blue eyes that suggested her heart rate had elevated in anticipation of doing something naughty. At that point, Ana scooped up the snail, leaned over, and flicked the poor shelled creature into the back of the girl's hoodie.

* * *

Operation Snail Terror was effective, though Ana spent the fallout just mindlessly tapping about her phone and being frustrated with her own malcontent. Screams, death threats, and lumps of thrown sand never got high enough to bother her; they were all just so much noise.

The way she sat there, totally unfazed, probably made some of the girls want all the more to provoke a reaction out of her. But a few of them must have been more mature than the others, because after some arguing among themselves they decided to leave. She heard some bitter snaps of 'slut' and 'bitch' which meant nothing at all, and then she was alone again.

Ana leaned over and surveyed the playground floor once they'd departed, and spotted the snail unharmed and crawling off towards the garden. Excellent. She was pleased the little fella hadn't gotten squashed in the melee. Her dad was right about this: sometimes, the most effective solution to a problem was the slimy/funny one. She waved goodbye to the snail and then looked back to her phone.

Adele, snake eggs hatching, kittens, cartoons- SUPER SPEEDY TEXTING MANEUVER!

She flipped to her contacts and—before she could stop herself—quickly tapped the newest contact. She typed an innocuous message: 'Ping.' SEND IT, BUAHAHAH! Then, for the briefest moment, she felt dread (and a renewed respect for her own mania). How long ought she to wait before assuming he didn't want to talk? Should she send a second message in like, an hour, just in case?

But a grand total of six seconds later, her phone began to ring. Anastasia nearly fell off the monkey bars, and then steadied herself and lifted the receiver to her ear. "Hi?"

"Oh my god, what took you so long?!" Sandro demanded in a whisper. "I was starting to think you were annoyed with me and would never call."

Ana nearly fell off the monkey bars again, and decided she probably ought to retreat to ground level because the third time she swooned while up there would surely be the charm, and she'd end up face-down in the playground sand. "Well of course I'm not annoyed!" she gushed as she slipped down to the ground and stuck her landing. "I finished school and I exercised and now I'm miserably bored! Can you get out!?"

"Ssh, I'm home and can't raise my voice to talk over you, loudmouth. I'd get overheard."

"Oh-um-sorry-!" she tried to tone her enthusiasm down a bit. Deep breaths.

"I can only climb up once it's dark," he explained. "Give me a minute, I'll at least get out of the den for now so I don't get surprise eavesdroppers."

"Okay. Huh. You know, you have surprisingly good reception for being underground."

"Have an uncle who loves technology. Which is fortunate. Make this more bearable. Call you back in a minute."

He hung up, temporarily.

Anastasia pulled her phone down from her ear and looked at it. She scuffed in place where she stood. Then she proceeded to jump about, and spin, and circle her arms in the air. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Eeeee!" She squealed her unnatural and indescribable and directionless enthusiasm, and clapped, and bounced; and then when her phone started ringing again she took a deep breath to steady herself, and just barely remembered to lower her voice as she answered. "Hi!" So much for lowering her voice.

"I'm in the clear," her new friend informed her anyways. "Where do you want to meet? I'll head that way."

Her head exploded with ideas (here, there, everywhere!) but she supposed she ought to take things easy. What could people do outside after it grew dark but before the city was fully asleep? "Depends how hungry you are," she replied conspiratorially. "We could go for a walk along the river?" Oh yeah, that was exciting and fun. Not. Where had that even come from? Well what else are we supposed to do?

"Anything is better than a sewer," he agreed, simply.

Anastasia wanted to do a handstand. "I'll meet you outside the Subway restaurant on Lane and Karen Street then," she said. "And, Sandro, this is very important: do you like Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomatoes?"

"And Mozzarella?"

"Gonna level with you, there's no such thing as a bad choice in cheese, but the common BLT goes best with two to three slices of provolone."

"I shall trust in your expertise on this topic."

She was going to need to pickpocket someone if her funds were going to survive to the weekend, but that was seldom hard. She just needed to find some distracted businessman yelling at a taxi driver somewhere; there were always plenty of those. "Your faith in me is moving," she grinned as she spoke. "I'll call you back when I've secured the bacon, S."

"Roger that, agent Wildcard."

Tehe!


	5. Yin and Yang

[Author's Note] In which Sandro misses perfectly good opportunities to use 'Shell' as a curse word.

* * *

"S!"

"S here. Status report, agent Wildcard?"

"I have the bacon."

"Damn. It's... still a couple hours till nightfall."

* * *

Manhole covers were actually extremely heavy, which might sound surprising until one realized that semi trucks needed to pass over them safely without caving the road in. They were several inches of thick steel, and road workers usually pulled them off the ground with a specialized crowbar and, if they weren't particularly burly, help from a friend.

Well Anastasia didn't have a crowbar, but a trip through Builder Depot 3 with freshly purloined funds could give her access to one. She favored the store clerk with a look of utmost disinterest while they rang up her purchase, and when they actually wondered aloud what she was purchasing a crowbar for, she yawned something about dad and the stupid shed out back.

People who asked questions like that were kinda funny. Like, 'Lady, if I wanted to go rioting with improvised weaponry, I'd steal a baseball bat from my neighbors or a golf club from my dad or something like that. I wouldn't go to a hardware store where I'd have to listen to tinny, smooth jazz music playing over the intercom, and then calmly purchase an expensive, Black and Decker, drop-iron forged crowbar with extra spongy safety grip. And I definitely wouldn't add on a broad beam yellow flashlight to get a twenty percent discount on all orders over $49. 99. But, ya know, thanks for trying to do your civic duty or something.'

* * *

Wildcard levered the cover off with a grunt of strain. Heavy, heavy, heavy! She dropped it half off the mouth of the sewer entrance, and twisted about to make absolutely certain she wouldn't be seen. Anybody? Nope, nobody. She stripped off her hoodie and baggy pants, till she was just in her plain black 'costume,' and stuffed the excess clothing into the backpack. Done. She unhooked her crowbar and started down on the narrow metal ladder. When she was four rungs down, she poked the crowbar back into the cover from above, an braced herself against back of the shaft to get some good pushing leverage.

BANG.

Getting the cover back on was a lot louder than pulling it off had been, and the heavy metal echoed for a moment above her. Yowch, she always underestimated manhole covers. She sheathed the crowbar back into her backpack, where the wakizashi had once lived, and descended into the pitch blackness below. Down, down, down in a claustrophobic cylinder of unyielding lime. A breeze hit her as the narrow confines of the shaft gave way to the open sewer.

Wow, what a smell.

Wildcard twisted about to have a look, clinging to the ladder with one hand and one foot and leaning out over the gurgling water and it's fetid air. Really, wow. She reached for her new flashlight, but then squinted when she was unexpectedly beaten to the punch: A yellow beam hit her from down below, and highlighted the unexpectedly large sewer for her benefit. Huh! The place didn't have the high stone arches or stone architecture of Gotham's sewers (which coincidentally made Gotham's sewers look like sunken churches) but it was clearly intended to handle a high volume of liquid in an emergency.

"What are you... doing?" The soft voice of a friend trickled up to her wondrously.

Wildcard grinned as she shielded her eyes. "Hey! Well you said you couldn't come up, but no one ever said anything against me coming down...!" She grabbed the ladder again and only climbed a few more rungs downward before hunkering so her knees came up to her chest. She hung backwards and looked upside down across breadth of the sewer.

"If anyone catches you down here..." Sandro breathed.

"If anyone catches either of us anywhere, we'd better hope one of us is a fast talker," she supposed with a big grin. Based on where the light was coming from, Sandro was on the opposite side, and she wasn't about to wade over to him on foot.

"What are you doing?"

She was nearly upside down and must have looked a little odd. "Jumping. If I break my neck, dial my emergency contact and be sure to tell my dad it wasn't your fault." She braced her toes against the front of the bars, took a deep breath, and then pushed free. The jump was good: release, airborne, tumble, reorient-

She failed to account for how slimy the ground was and slipped on the landing. She rolled with a clatter, and hit gently against the wall to stop any further momentum, and then jumped nimbly back up, stuck her nose in the air, and primly dusted herself off.

A turtle hurried up to her. "Are you alright-!?"

"You saw nothing!" Wildcard exclaimed over top of him with a magical Jedi wave. "I clearly meant to do that!" She spied algae on her sleeve, scowled, and quickly wiped at it.

Copper-gold eyes squinted, amused, down at her. He didn't have his hood up. "Yeah, sure you did." Definitely Sandro, hehe.

"I'll understand if you're jealous; after all, few people can be as graceful as me...!"

"You're an idiot."

"An idiot with food!" she corrected with a raised finger and a big grin up at him, and then she pulled off the plastic bag from where she'd sealed it and tied it to her backpack. "Tada! Any place down here smell halfway decent for eating at, or should we wait?"

The teenage turtle huffed silently, looking from the food to her. "Well. It's a sewer. But the air gets fresher on the outtake." And Sandro seemed to think about that, eyeing her and apparently trying to decide whether he ought to send her right back up the staircase she'd come through. She gave a winning smile. He shook his head and then half-turned and gestured for her to follow. "Come on loudmouth, I'll show you. Only keep quiet; it echoes really far down here."

She made a show of zipping her mouth shut, even though they both already knew it wouldn't last long, and then hopped along after him. They made their way through numerous streets' worth of tunnels, and—to her credit—Wildcard kept quiet and waited for him to say something first. The smell altered considerably as they went.

"So," the turtle finally prompted, "I get the sense you've snuck into a sewer before this."

"Back home," Wildcard agreed. "Once I figured out how they worked. Though you'll never see me pull open a manhole with my bare hands; I'm starting to appreciate you must be rather strong."

"Eh," he gave a noncommittal shrug.

"Eh?" Wildcard poked his arm. The bicep underneath was inordinately solid for a person their age, and she certainly had a strenuous physical regiment each day to qualify as an expert in the subject.

Sandro glanced at her, a little startled to be touched, "I suppose so. But it doesn't count for much when everyone you live with is considerably stronger then you."

She thought about that. "You've mentioned your uncles, but do you have any cousins? Or brothers or sisters?"

"I'm literally the whole family's only kid," he answered, and sounded sour about it. "It attracts a form of condescension—or at least a well-intentioned but frustrating coddling—from a lot of different sources simultaneously."

Wildcard couldn't help but grin at how he'd phrased that. "Your vocabulary is the only thing around here huge-er than you are. Do you read a lot?"

"I eat, I train, I read," he muttered, "I play video games. Rinse and repeat."

"You forgot 'I sneak' in there," she supplied helpfully as they switched from one tunnel to the next and beyond,

"Right. There, see ahead?" A light peaked through the tunnels, and he turned off his own flashlight as the two of them approached the exit, where water flowed out into the river. The view beyond was rather amazing, stretching out over the Hudson. They were dozens and dozens of yards above the water.

"Wow," Wildcard remarked, and hurried up ahead of him to peer out, and up, and down. Treated water from a large processing plant above them traveled back into the sewage system and spilled out into the mouth of the river, where currents eventually carried it out into the ocean.

"Careful-"

-but Wildcard was already hanging wayyy out to catch a glimpse of where the water hit the man made wall far below them. "There's a lot of concrete under this city!" she exclaimed joyfully. "I didn't realize how high up it really is!"

"Yeah, there's a lot of concrete under any city," Sandro supplied almost like a tour guide. "Keeps them from sinking. Here they extended the high ground, made a cliff face of terraces heading downwards, and reinforced it all. You can't have a city just slope into a beachfront without any levies or wave breakers anyway."

"Why not?" she wondered, and then squeaked when Sandro—apparently aggravated by her fearlessness—suddenly grabbed her by the backpack and hauled her back a few inches from the edge. "I wasn't going to fall!"

"Sure you weren't. But as to your question... think about it for a second: what would happen during the spring melts, or if the ocean swelled during a storm? People don't leave flooding to chance. You'll never see 'natural' river banks in a city."

"Oh." She straightened. "Makes sense."

"Anyway, you'll agree it's fresher here?"

It was; the water smelled faintly of chemicals, but it wasn't overbearing. He scuffed about for a dry place to sit, and she pulled out their sandwiches. Three for him, one for her. He looked sort of amused by the different in portion size, but took the food thankfully and certainly didn't hold back on eating all of it.

"You were right about the provolone," he reflected aloud.

"I am seldom wrong about cheese." It was the first time she'd ever gotten a look at him in natural lighting. Sandro wasn't exceptionally green; more a whirl of muddy browns and tans. And he had no bright accent colors at all, suggesting that he wasn't a red-eared slider or any sort of turtle she could conjure up a picture of off the top of her head.

"You always stare at me." He always sounded his age when he was uncomfortable.

Wildcard cringed dramatically, and then looked guiltily away. "Well I'm sure I stared at human faces as a newborn, too, because back then they were the most exciting new thing to stare at!" She took a bite of her sandwich, but of course felt guilty again. "I'm sorry," she mumbled through a gag of food.

She didn't catch that he'd started smiling until he spoke again, and the smile could be heard in his voice: "You're very unnecessarily dramatic."

"Excuse me, but I find it quite necessary to be unnecessarily dramatic," she not-chastised. "If I don't do it, it goes undone."

"Of course," the boy drawled. "And you're loud and obnoxious, too. But at least you don't freak out." He shrugged and took another bite of his food. "So you can stare."

She glanced back at him, and thought about this strange consolation. "When you come out to, like, here," she gestured to the outlet they were sitting in. "Is this like the only time you get to see the sun?"

"Mn. Fortunately I can't suffer from jaundice," was his flippant response.

"What's jaundice?"

"When a person's skin and eyes turn yellow because they aren't getting sunlight and can't metabolize Vitamin D," he grumbled.

Wildcard was quiet a moment. "That's kinda depressing."

"Yeah it kinda is," the boy agreed, in a glum and quiet way that suggested the qualifier of 'kinda' was entirely unnecessary. "Which is why 'I sneak' is part of my daily routine, I guess."

She opened the two-liter of soda she'd bought them, and took a sip and then passed it to him. He took more of a chug, really, but then he kinda had to throw his head back a bit to drink without risking spilling any. No lips meant not being able to make a 'seal' around the bottle or suck liquid from it. She supposed he might be able to use, say, a straw with the corner of his mouth; he was able to say the letter 'p' and 'b' after all, and Anastasia had practiced trying to say those letters during her gym routine without employing her lips and realized just how impossible it was. Uh oh, she was staring again, wasn't she? But he didn't call her out on it this time.

Instead he asked a question: "So, why pick the name 'Wildcard?'"

"Ooh. Many reasons! It has the word 'wild' in it; Didn't you say people from Gotham were supposed to be crazy?" She reached into her hoodie and pulled out a deck of cards. "Also I like cards." She tossed the deck in a fan from one hand to the next, and then closed it again.

Sandro set up straighter, gaze focused on her hands. "How did you do that?"

"Practice." She picked out a card and flicked it between her knuckles, dancing it from the pointer finger to the pinky. These were the sort of tricks her father had given her to exercise her fingers and wits with since she'd been small, and they were chief among the reasons why she never feared to hold sharp objects.

But her audience sat forward to watch and gave her the entirety of his attention, so she made herself comfortable and then quickly went through a little show of sleight of hand, like the sort Helena had found entertaining. Sandro tilted his head wondrously. Pleased to have made a spectacle of herself—particularly when he was so often the spectacle—she continued and went through all the tricks she knew. At last she bridged the deck and shuffled it again.

"That was neat," he complimented her. "All of it."

"Hehe! Thank you, thank you! I don't usually get to show off."

"I would assume you'd have plenty of opportunities?"

"No. Not really. I try not to attract much attention to myself. Hey, I have a question. You mentioned all your uncles are stronger than you, and that you spend a lot of the day training? I normally go to the recreation center to exercise—or stay at home to practice with my knives and nick-knacks—but I'm not actually proficient with any real martial art and you carry those Kama like you know how to use them. So I wanted to ask: do you think we could spar at night? You'd get practice against someone you could actually beat; and maybe you could teach me something!"

Sandro leaned back and hesitated. "I... " he seemed to mentally enumerate reasons this might be a 'bad idea,' but then said, "We'd have to use practice weapons. And, uh, honestly, I'd be leery about hitting you even with just a stick. I wouldn't want to hurt you and you're..."

"...tiny," Wildcard completed for him, irritated by how true it was. "But I'm surprisingly hard to hit! You said I was fast the day you met me, didn't you? I've good reflexes, I'm quick on my feet, and I'm pretty tough for my size. If I end up with too many bruises, I guess we could quit, but I would really appreciate being taught... and the people 'topside' ask too many questions and make me uncomfortable."

He smirked curiously and crossed his arms to listen. "What kind of questions?"

"Everything. Where I'm from, what my dad does, where I go to school, where I hang out, what my hobbies are, if I want to compete, why I don't want to compete, is something up with my home life, blah, blah, blah."

He raised a brow. "Those things are all somehow secrets?"

Oh. Wildcard shifted uncomfortably, but then supplied: "You can't already tell I must be odd?"

Sandro shuttered his eyes at her, and then said in a marvelously flat deadpan: "You're talking to a turtle, Wild."

Ha! She leaked a giggle and slapped a hand over her face to try and stop from laughing at him, but then smiled through the gag regardless. "A very pleasant turtle!"

"Look... you may be small, but you're right, I watched you down three Foot Clan thugs in the span of a breath, so it's obvious you've been getting in scraps on the street since you've been old enough to stab someone. Which is kinda freaky," Sandro reflected, and his words made her heart seize.

"B-but it's not like I'm a-"

"Hey, loudmouth, let me talk. I'm not done."

She covered her mouth.

"Like I was trying to say: If you want to learn any style of Eastern martial art," and apparently he was warming to the idea, "that's going to take discipline. And you should really start off with footwork and empty-handed strikes or grabs, slowly, the same way as anyone else. So if you're willing to begin there..."

"I've been thinking for awhile of enrolling in classes anyway!" Wildcard exclaimed from behind her hands, forgetting that they ought to have been muffling her "This would be a lot more fun! I... I've fought a little bit in the past... but I need to know more, for flexibility's sake at the very least, and there's only so much I can learn on my own!"

"And I could bring you a wooden sai or blade to practice with if you stuck with it," he agreed. "But it would be up to me when. Also, we need to scout out someplace we can practice without being overseen."

She grinned, big, and clapped quickly. "I'd like that. I'll be patient!"

"Patient?" the boy scoffed at her with a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I don't think you know the meaning of the word. But that got me three sandwiches hours early and I was starving, so..." He winked at her. Winked!

"Ha! Hehe! This is going to be so much fun! You won't be sorry!" She was very nearly bouncing in her seat.

"Yeah, sure I won't. Finish your food, Wild, before I finish mine first and make at least one of us look bad."

She stuck her tongue out, and snatched back up the sandwich from her lap to do just that. The two of them ate in companionable quiet for a bit after that; both still just kids, and both odd, and both armed. Beyond, the sun slowly dipped below the distant Manhattan skyline.


	6. Fighting Fair

Day three! Wildcard was eating dirt, and rightly so. She laughed into the weeds and gravel, despite the fact that her teeth had clacked together painfully and there were now scrapes and grass-stains all over her face. Ow. When Sandro wanted her down for a spell, he sure as hell could make it happen. There was something splendidly humbling in that.

"Oh my god you're like a _little spider monkey_!" her sparring partner spat with adrenaline as he paced around her at a safe distance.

She rolled onto her back, wincing as she caught her breath, and wearing a big grin she had no means of suppressing. "Told you-" she panted, "-I was fast...!"

"'Fast!'" She heard the shuffling of cloth, and looked to him.

"Are you taking your coat off?" she sputtered.

"If you're going to keep dragging me around in circles by it and throwing the tail over my head, I am _sure as shit_ going to take my coat off!" he somehow thundered despite how his voice never got particularly loud. She was glad not to be the only super-powered thirteen year old who cursed when adults weren't looking! The two of them had found an empty lot around the old factories on the river the day before, but they didn't want to draw the attention of any nearby guards or worse.

"Hey, I never claimed I knew how to fight fair!" she protested cheerily as she staggered up to her feet.

" _Ha_!"

Wildcard rejoined him, briskly. "Does this mean I finally get to see if you have a shell!?" she demanded. He had one, of course, and she'd shouldered into it enough times mid-spar to know.

"Yes you get to see if I have a shell," Sandro muttered testily (much too testily for a thirteen year old boy) as he stripped off the arms of the trench coat and then swiftly folded it up.

Someone clearly made his family's clothing as a specialty. The front of his torso was humanoid enough to warrant a proper shirt and the sleek black cotton he was now wearing sported no obvious stretchmarks. But if one looked at him from the side, The shirt ended in tightly bunched knots held in place by sturdy braids of fabric. These crossed his sides (which were themselves a sandwiched stratum of sharp ridges) and then wrapped about to cross the shell.

And it was unmistakably a shell. The edges could be seen flaring out all about his shoulders, sides, and even slightly about the tops of his hips. The profile of it hugged rather tightly against him for a turtle shell, and obviously could not have been retracted into in any sense of the word, but it was made of thick, broad, bone-reinforced, chitinous plates. It was ridged, leathery, a little spiky in a few places, and dark brown. It was a turtle's shell.

"Wow," she murmured. He turned to toss his trench coat off to the side, and she placed her palms flat against the leathery scutes just to feel them. The plates must have been able to strain or slide against one another a bit... Sandro was much more flexible and spry than a permenantly stiff spinal cord would have allowed. Her fingers found fine gaps between plates.

Sandro slowed in turning back her, and went still for a moment. Then when he looked over his shoulder, his face appeared darker than usual. Why would-? Was he _blushing_? Oh. _Ha!_ Oops. Someone didn't get touched much outside of a fighting ring!

Wildcard sharply retracted her hands with a big grin and a meep of, "Sorry!"

"Warn me the next time you randomly decide you're going to grope me," he muttered, using charged words as an indirect punishment for her tricksy fighting style.

She grinned ear-to-ear and bluffed a wild one like a poker queen: "I'm _completely_ flat chested or else I'd offer to trade!"

Sandro's eyes widened and he lunged at her in a fury, probably to grab her by the scruff and hoist her off of the ground and shake the Pure Evil out of her; but she danced out of his way and he had to catch himself in scrambling after her. He'd messed up—finally!—and she and slid to the ground to roll into his legs. THUD. Ow! Holy crap, he was just _so much stronger_ than her. Even tripping him was painful!

He didn't get up immediately, but propped himself up on his elbows and apparently decided to give some thought to how she'd managed to pull this off. She climbed on top of his shell, and sat herself there. "Do I win?" she asked, still breathing heavily from the fight.

"You do _not_ fight fair," the boy assessed as he drummed his fingers against the ground.

"Never," Wildcard giggled, and flopped onto her back on top of him, crossed a knee, and folded her arms behind her head so she could peer up at the moon. No stars were really visible from within any city. He twisted to glance back at incredulously her from the corner of his eye. She tilted her head back to see him, and grinned. He had either a slender neck or simply a slightly long one. Was that an indicator of youth? It certainly gave him a razor sharp jawline to complement the beak and pointed chin and nose.

"Are you seriously using me as a couch?" he queried indignantly.

"Of course not. You're more of a bench," she corrected him as if his assumption had been absurd.

"Okay, _you_ ," he reached back, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her off of himself as he sat up, "are ridiculous, you silly _clown_."

" _Yes_." She beamed.

Sandro shuttered his eyes at her, but then smirked and lifted his chin. "If you actually want me to tutor you after this spar, you have to _listen_ and not play annoying pranks when you're supposed to be paying attention. Because I could seriously end up hurting you with one badly timed hit, and you hug so close you're hard to _see_. Like you're fearless, and want to play Russian roulette with being _stepped on_."

Wildcard affected sainthood.

"Right. I see through that face. Your style is 'fun,' but only until someone manages to get hold of you, and your footwork isn't good enough to stop them." But then he leaned forward and grabbed her chin to have a better look at her. "That's gonna swell, ain't it?" he remarked of the scrapes on her face, which were hot and throbbed and were probably going to end up looking fantastic by tomorrow.

"Hazard of the occupation," she dismissed with grinning bluster. "Tell me more about my footwork."

"And you'll take me seriously?" Copper-gold eyes studied her.

She took a deep breath and then nodded curtly. "Perhaps I am giddy about suddenly having a best friend; but I assure you I am capable of seriousness at most other junctures in my life, and therefore ought to be just as capable of it now." And that was true; she was nearly mute when watching other people play at parkour, and didn't budge from her seat at all.

 _New best friend._ Sandro hrmed doubtfully as he stood, but then offered her a hand up. She took it and he pulled her to her feet like she was as light as a post card. "Show me your stance, then," he said. "And no more tricks or jokes unless we are actually sparring."

"You'll allow me to joke while we're actually sparring?" she wondered aloud as she backed up into a stance and raised her arms. Sandro walked about her, toed her feet apart with a casual push of his boot, and then nudged her shoulders and elbows into a better alignment.

"Yeah," he answered. "Fighting while distracted by a loudmouthed pixie is apparently educational for me." And he tacked on in a mutter as he pulled back, "Somehow even worse than fighting Michelangelo."

 _Orange turtle's existence confirmed._

 _Wait, no, Anastasia, you have never read comics._ _Ever._ _Definitely not ones about turtles._

"Alright," Sandro reclaimed her attention. "Show me how you'd throw a punch, and we'll start from there."

* * *

They walked along the wharf, where only workers ought to have been, amidst cranes, forklifts, pulleys, boxes and the soft sounds of water. Here and there they dodged a late-night work crew.

They had nowhere to be and not much to do (if they weren't going to look for trouble), but it seemed there was no end of random things they could talk about if they just walked about. It was strange to think that walking aimlessly around for hours could be fun, but it was. The breeze was nice.

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen more stars than four," Wildcard reflected with some small disappointment as they paused at the extreme end of the pier.

"Me neither," Sandro agreed, equally miffed with impenetrable black velvet above them.

"There's the two in Ursa Major," Wildcard pointed out, "and like two other random ones. And a plane. There's always a plane. There's never _not_ a plane."

"You've never lived far out from a city either?" he asked.

"No. I guess there were a few times I might have seen stars while we were travelling, but it never occurred to me to look. Maybe I should ask my dad to take me camping some day. I lived in New York once, but I was only six." A grin suddenly took her face by storm, and she turned to look at him. "You must have been adorable at six."

"And almost as short as you."

" _Hey_!" She shoved him.

He grinned slyly down at her.

* * *

Mr. Hamilton paused beside the bathroom door with a mug of decaf coffee, and raised a brow at where his daughter was leaned into the mirror and dabbing grit from her cheek. "Did you lose a fight with a concrete sidewalk?" he asked her dryly.

Anastasia turned a fierce grin to him. "Yeah but I sat on the bastard what done it," she explained. "So never fear! What have you been up to? Anything fun?"

"Not this time. And watch your language, squirt. I was actually tracking the fallout from the failed kidnapping of Helena Wayne. Do you think anyone might have seen your face just before the incident, someone who might have been able to place you at that gas station and make you a suspect in foiling the mob caravan?"

"A susp-" Anastasia paused. "Oh... I talked to the gas station attendant." Her eyes widened as she remembered. "Then I disappeared into the bathroom to take your call, and crawled out the window, but I forgot to ever double back and crawl back in again."

" _Mnhmm_. Well, the gas station attendant saw your face, and the mob thugs saw you in costume, and both versions of you had the same height. The police station is looking for info matching your description, and mob moles are listening in to see if they hear anything." He offered her a piece of paper, on which a sketch artist had drawn out a hooded, teenage girl.

"That... looks a lot like Terra Smith," she admitted, voice low and guilty. "Even if they got my nose wrong." Flynn Ryder moment. Her shoulders drooped. "I was... _sloppy_."

"You were sloppy," he agreed with a slurp of his coffee. "Though it'll blow over easy enough with the mob and the police—no one has to take more than six seconds to reach up to the chalk board and put another mark under 'instances of copy-cat vigilantism by stupid child'—we still aren't going back to Gotham any time soon."

"And now Batman knows about me," she droned sadly.

"Bingo." Her father knocked his knuckles gently on the top of her head. She winced, but he managed to get a smile out of her. "But, _hey_ , he now literally has eyewitness reports that you use smoke bombs and lob throwing knives to knock guns out of people's hands, which—if I'm not mistaken—is the man's own combat methodology. To say nothing of how you literally rescued his only child. Maybe he'll be flattered."

"You said you didn't even want him curious about me," Anastasia sighed, knowing she'd done bad.

"No, but if I absolutely must choose between curious and judgmental," he reflected aloud, "I suppose I'll begrudgingly settle for the former. So! What have we learned?"

"Always remember your own plan even if exciting things happen in the middle, and go crawl back into the window you crawled out of?" she supposed.

"Hmm. Well, I was going to go with 'Don't leave any witnesses and kill all the thugs,' but your way does sound a lot more heroic." He took another sip of coffee.

Anastasia laughed and then smiled thankfully up at him. "Don't worry, I keep two separate binders in my head for your advice, dad. One labeled 'good' the other labeled 'evil.'"

"Your storage system is that atrociously black and white?" he asked with a raised brow. "I'm disappointed."

"Well obviously it's an entry requirement that advice needs to be funny for it to even get into my filing room, so really at this point I'm not sure what you're expecting, dad. I had to sort the funny somehow, and 'funny' and 'really funny' just weren't cutting it. Admittedly I should probably have a third binder for 'naughty' but there were so many pages of notes I had to rent out a whole file cabinet instead, and there are manila folders in there for everything from 'just throw slime at them' to 'strategic banana peel placement.' I mean, you _raised_ me."

Her father reflected on this. "Black and white is sort of a good color scheme for you, actually. I need to think about this further." He slurped coffee and then looked back down at her. "Do I really suggest slime to enough of life's problems that you have a whole folder for it?"

"There's a folder for slime, a folder for confetti, a folder for glitter, a folder for slime plus glitter, a folder for slime that very specifically looks like boogers but happens to contain hallucinogens, a folder for actual boogers, a folder for simultaneous but strategic application of slime, confetti, and glitter such that it-" she enumerated on her fingers, and finally he was unable to resist the conversation anymore and folded over laughing.

* * *

"Clearly we need a Planetarium!" was the first thing Wildcard announced to him as Sandro climbed out of the sewer the next evening. "That way we can at least _pretend_ to know what stars look like."

"Great," Sandro squinted back up at her. "Just give me a second to go back down and order that off eBay for the evening. 'One giant concrete dome and star projector,' seller has a customer satisfaction rating of 4%. Do you think they'll give me free shipping if I order from within the continental united states? Do they make flatbeds large enough for that?"

Unperturbed by his sarcasm, Wildcard cackled and hopped in place, and he already knew danger was afoot as he he got off the top of the ladder and pushed the manhole cover back in place. "I have an idea for what we can do tonight!" she cooed.

"You have a very boring 'friend' who can't actually go anywhere or do anything," he forestalled cautiously.

"Lies and slander!" She pulled out a glossy leaflet and showed him. It was advertising the local science center. "You're anything but boring. They're having a 'Space Festival' this week and the center is staying open a few more hours!"

"No."

"I went inside already!" she exclaimed. "It's all dimly lit and most of the exhibits are only visible cause of back-lighting. _Plus_ it's a week-day and most kids are already in bed, so it's not crowded!"

" _No_."

"But they have the largest planetarium in the western hemisphere!" she wailed informatively. "Come on Sandro, it'll be silly fun! We'll only go in for like forty-five minutes!"

Clearly he needed to be firm, and he lowered his voice. "Look, Ana, this is still new for ya, so clearly you haven't gotten it into yer head yet, but it's sure as hell been drummed into mine: I _can't be seen_ ," he hissed, leaning over her and pointing to his face. "Not everyone is as chill about _this_ as you are, and that's not somethin' I can _ever_ have silly fun about!"

She recoiled as sharply as if he'd reached out smacked her, and cringed there in place even after he was done speaking.

Sandro grimaced and straightened. He stared at her for a moment and then his shoulders drooped. "I'm... I'm sorry for snapping."

Wildcard's posture slowly un-crumpled. She was quiet a long moment. But then: "I wouldn't let anything happen to you," she said, startling him with her word choice. "You aren't alone up here anymore. I'd stay directly in front of you to keep the crowd parted. You are really thoroughly covered up, and wouldn't be recognizable as strange in broad daylight unless someone was texting on their phone and walked straight into you."

Sandro didn't know what to say to that.

Wildcard didn't quite look at him until, after a moment, she rapidly shook her head and folded up the leaflet and put it away. "I'm sorry for saying anything." She gave him a smile that was broad and toothy and unexpectedly convincing, and he tilted his head in curious disbelief. _Wait, what?_ "Come on! Let's go sneak into Liberty Park and find an open bit of land to practice my sad footwork on!"

Wow. She could _lie through her_ _teeth_ if it involved smiling.

They were halfway en route to find a park when his words damned him: "Show me where the science center is."

She spun to look at him and he could see her whole face lighting up behind the facade. "You're sure?"

"No," he growled, extremely uncomfortable. "So let's go before I change my mind."

She grinned, and rubbed at the back of her hood bashfully. "What if I told you Liberty Science Center is _in_ Liberty State Park?"

He stiffened and then scowled at her. "You hadn't given up."

She raised her hands placatingly. "I had, I _had_! But now we can see both! C'mon." She grabbed a handful of his coat sleeve and dragged him along.

* * *

Wildcard tossed him a ski mask as they reached the doors of the center. They would have made better time if they'd been able to take a bus, but that would have been pushing his already nervous stomach an inch too far.

"What do I say if someone asks me why I look like a _burglar_?" Sandro hissed after her.

" _You_ don't say anything!" she explained with a manic grin. "No one is going to ask that to your face, and if people try to get in your face or start muttering and pointing, I'm going to stomp up to them and tell them to stop making fun of my big brother because he has Harlequin's Syndrome and is really, really self-conscious and how could they be so inconsiderate!?"

"Will that-?! ...God, this is a _bad idea_...!"

"You only say that because your sample size is too small!" she cackled, and dragged him along.

Sandro had no trouble looking incredibly self-conscious about his appearance (and whatever disease supposedly afflicted him) as they entered the glass doors and Wildcard hopped ahead to the ticket booth. The teller said something about 'closing in just an hour' and Wildcard complained 'I know, I know, we're gonna miss it all!' and that was all the convincing anyone needed to sell them two tickets, apparently.

This place was _enormous_ and looked so delicate in one respect. He'd never seen so much glass.

"San! C'mon!" She beckoned hurriedly for him to follow, and he stopped staring at the interior of the building to hurry after her. "Get your head down," she hissed as he got near, "and stay _right_ behind me." He wasn't certain whether to be relieved or terrified that she was momentarily more 'on top of' his safety in the moment than he was.

They slipped into huge, sparsely populated rooms scattered with gently illuminated exhibits of rocket ship parts and models of the solar system, many with buttons or levers for hands-on learning. A giant, spiraling dust cyclone in a tube attempted to explain the red 'eye' of Jupiter.

Sandro looked about in surprise, keeping his head low and avoiding eye contact with anyone. It wasn't so different from passing a stranger at night, except that now he wanted to look at everything.

But Wildcard dragged him along into a separate room where the temperature abruptly shifted and everything was nearly pitch black. All around them against the curves of a massive black dome, were hundreds of thousands of stars. Sandro straightened.

"Oh. _Wow_."

He had expected a speckling of nondescript, white dots, scarcely any different from shining a flashlight through a box poked full of pin holes in a dark room. This was very different. This was amazing.

"I _know_ ," Wildcard laughed as she spun about. "Did you know the Milky Way was visible from earth!?"

He'd been thinking the exact same thing. "I guess I'd have assumed any picture of it was taken from the Hubble..." He followed her wondrously out into the center of the chamber, where a small central area protected the planetarium's projector and, apparently, housed some controls. A few other people were there, playing with the options. Soon, light green lines stretched across the star display above them, highlighting the constellations and projecting names.

"That's not an archer," Wildcard protested of one. "That's a jester's hat on a stick! I'd know, I'm an expert."

"I'm afraid our ancient ancestors had better imaginations than you," Sandro laughed as he looked about to catch sight of everything. There was little chance of his face being glimpsed in such lighting.

"Ha! Maybe. Or maybe they all had lead poisoning and the stars looked like giant white paint blobs up there. Van Gogh speckles, everywhere! I'm sure that could have enough visual clutter to imagine one saw an archer."

He laughed harder. "What if I told you Sagittarius is a _centaur_ archer?"

"Oh well then that's way easier to see. Look, you can even see the bow! Pfft. No one _else_ had the courtesy of telling me I ought to mix it with an animal first. Only it's really more a camel than a-"

"Hey, um," a woman whispered loudly, "can you kids not _shout_?"

Sandro reached out and hooked a hand around Wildcard's mouth to pull her back before she could decide whether to terrify the woman or apologize to her. "We're sorry..." he whispered, but did not look down from the stars.

"Mnh-hmhphf," a muffled loudmouth echoed dutifully.


	7. Basis for Comparison

[Author's Note] I wanted to demonstrate Sandro lacks some of his uncles' free-form and rough-and-tumble acrobatics skill at this age. This is because had no playmates as a child (other than Michelangelo who did his best to fill in that gap) and too much adult oversight. Splinter was a good parent, but there was only one him to supervise four rowdy boys, who partially raised one-another. By contrast, Sandro is very well-trained, educated, and cared for but... a little smothered.

* * *

Wildcard and Sandro hurried about the Liberty Science Center as it emptied to enjoy the largest and most noticeable of the exhibits, most of which could be played with or at least toggled in some manner. The only had so many minutes, and then they needed to get out before security could begin to herd them towards the entrance, or ask questions about why someone was loitering about past closing hour whilst coincidentally wearing a ski mask.

Once outside, they affected to head towards the bus station, and then started to walk along the sidewalk, and then eventually snuck deeper into the park and over a fence into the relative safety of an abandoned and overgrown railway station.

"That was awesome. I can't believe I let you talk me into that," Sandro laughed, and Wildcard thought he sounded exhilarated for all that it had been so small a thing. Except it hadn't been a small thing, had it? Not for him.

"Hey, I'm good at this!" she giggled. "The 'talking into' and the 'going incognito' parts, both."

He pulled off the ski mask and tossed it to her, and then plopped down to sit and rest for awhile from the adrenaline of it all. "Sure you are. Ugh!"

"You've never done anything like that?" she asked, practicing on controlling her conversational enthusiasm now that random people were yelling at her to be quiet. She did a cartwheel to get some energy out.

"Never," he admitted with a shake of his head, and that was saying something given that he disobeyed 'the rules' set forth by his family every day of his life by coming to the surface. "Heh," he grinned over at her. "When I was young I apparently tottered away from my mother once and bumped into some women who broke out screaming. Made a _big_ scene. Maybe it left an impression on me."

Wildcard fell over with a whoop of laughter. "They _screamed_!?" she cackled. "What a bunch of silly nits, I guess th-they were just really startled!"

"Yes, because something looked _horribly wrong with me,_ " he groaned.

Wildcard pressed her hands over her mouth and giggled to herself, peering through station's dark roof and imagining a bunch of prim women making horrified, indignant facial expressions and squealing 'what in heaven's name is wrong with that child!?'

"Nothing's wrong with you," Wildcard hummed. "You're _perfect_." She sat back up. "Go with me to a movie tomorrow."

He jumped slightly. "What? _No._ This was a one-time-only thing. _Ever_. I still can't believe I let you talk me into it."

"Exactly, which is why we must go to the movies during the day," she answered with questionable sagacity.

"I-I am not going _anywhere_ during the day!" he hissed. "Are you crazy, Wild? I can't even come up here at all!"

"Nu, nu, nu," she waved her hands, "you misunderstand the brilliance of this plan. Movie theaters only have people in them at night, and even then they really only have people on the weekends at night. If you want the theater—and the entire area around the theater—to be basically deserted, you have to go on a school day shortly after the theater opens, which is usually about noon."

He frowned at here, but turned to stare at her more intently.

"It would be the same basic plan as today: I'd chat up the ticket seller while you follow me awkwardly from behind. Theaters usually have a 'no unaccompanied minors' policy so we're basically passing you off as my eighteen-year-old brother since you're so tall. So you have to be in sight, but not close enough that you'd be expected to say anything or pay. If it goes awry, I'm the only one she's seen, so we just boogie. If it works, there will be literally like two or three other people in the entire room with us at maximum, and they wont be sitting anywhere near us. We can just sit in the front, where no one wants to be anyway, and then literally no one will have a chance to see your face."

Sandro stared at her, quietly, arms draped over his knees. After a long moment he turned his head away, and she could see him swallow heavily. That was when she realized that he was scared. She tilted her head to the side and then clambered up to sit beside him.

"It was just an idea," she said. "I'm sorry. I won't whine and frustrate you like last time. It was just an idea."

Sandro grimaced and dropped his head into the cross of his arms. "I haven't been able to go anywhere, my entire life, Wild. Even with my mother, it wasn't safe. That doesn't suddenly change because _you_ want it to, no matter how convincing you can be."

He almost sounded _hurt_. Wildcard frowned, now very sorry. After a moment she sidled closer to him, and leaned her back into his side. Sorta a hug. "I'm sorry." For tempting him into doing dangerous things; For not thinking about his feelings.

Sandro bristled a bit at the contact, but then didn't move away or say anything or shove her over. He took a deep breath, and she could feel the plates of his shell as his lungs expanded. "What movie did you want to see, by the way?"

"I wasn't sure," she remarked. "I think watching super hero moves be ill-advised for children in our position, as they would probably give us unrealistic expectations about how big explosions ought to be in real life. So I was thinking of seeing some science-fiction, instead, because then I know the explosions depicted are _fictional_ and not based on a true story."

"You were thinking about the new Starwars Movie."

"It's apparently about Han Solo!"

"I know what it's _about_."

Wildcard peered back at him, and then reached around and shook his shoulder and pushed herself to standing. "Come on, sourpuss, let's get up and go for a jog! If we find a spot with good moonlight, we can spar. Also you'll feel better because you have a longer stride than me and I'll totally be out of breath." But out of the two of them, she ran more often, and he lived in a sewer, so actually they'd probably keep an even pace

He grunted, apparently grateful to be relieved from the conversation, and got up to join her.

* * *

They did find a nice place to spar and train for the evening. She dropped her backpack and bolted across the green grass—so rare to see so much of it in the city!—and then dove into a cartwheel, twisted into the handspring, and made into the aerial somersault before landing.

"Ha!" she laughed, stumbling backwards (sloppy landing), and then flopped happily on the ground ( _Oof_!) and waved her arms and legs back and forth across the lawn. "We need to come here more often!"

"Keep your voice down, loudmouth...!"

"Oh yeah." She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes, and breathed deep and happily. Then she looked up to see a bemused turtle standing over her, already divested of cloak. Today's shirt color was blue. "Hi!"

"That flip was cool," he admitted as he offered her a hand up.

"Ooh, ooh, wait, watch this, too!" she blurted on remembering another trick. "Er, unless I mess it up, in which case, you saw _nothing_." Wildcard curled up and rocked back on her hands, and waited for her reflections to align. Then with a push and an arch of her back she managed to jump up into a squat and then to hop straight upright.

"That's _neat_ ," Sandro clapped, his mood from earlier now gone. "I can only do, like, _one_ handspring."

"Wait, you can do _what_ now? I demand to see." He was so much heavier than her, but he _was_ quick and silent on his feet and on hearing this she didn't doubt him.

"...Do I have to? I might fall, and you'll laugh at me."

"Of course, I laugh at everything," she agreed. "Show me!"

He groaned. "Let me stretch first."

She thought this was probably a good idea, and went off to find where she'd lobbed her backpack to obtain some water for both of them. She turned about to see him ready to run to rejoin her, and she sat down to watch attentively. He crossed the field at a sprint.

As it turned out, he could absolutely do a handspring, though his landing was a little rocky. Wildcard reached out reflexively to him, and then clapped rapidly.

"Oof," he laughed as he came up and plopped beside her and swiped some of the water. "You made it look easy."

"I don't have a _shell!_ " she reminded him with a big smile. "I watched, you curl forward fine but obviously have a really tough time flexing backwards because of the shell, so you have to push off much harder with your arms to give yourself enough time to spin upright. Try to think of it more asymmetrically."

"Mn. Thanks."

"I have been practicing my stance on a gymnastics balance beam all afternoon," she told him as she got up. "See if I've got it." Sandro had been drilling her on very basic stances, offensive lunges, and defensive footwork. Usually, rote movements irritated her, but this had been interesting. Truthfully, it was something of a wonder she'd taken so long to grow an interest in martial arts, of all things. Maybe she'd never previously felt like she'd needed it? Not until Sandro had been able to _flatten_ her.

"You picked this up fast," Sandro said as he surveyed her stance and motions, and she beamed with the implicit praise.

"Well, I should hope so," Wildcard giggled. "Seeing as all I do every day is exercise and copy other people's moves, I'd be a little disappointed with myself if I was progressing _slowly_."

Sandro paused and then unexpectedly reached up from where he was sitting and took her arms up in his hands and squeezed her biceps and forearms.

Wildcard raised both brows curiously for a moment. Then she grinned when she realized he'd never had any other basis of comparison for what 'physically fit' looked like in a normal child his own age. "So, for your info, my arms have definition to them, and that's extremely rare for a thirteen-year-old girl." She didn't bother stressing again how huge he was.

He murmured thoughtfully, and released her. "What sorts of exercise?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious as he stood.

"I guess... a bit of everything? Recently it's mostly gymnastics, since I have access to all the equipment not far from home. I used to just play outside in the warehouse district and spy on the skate park boys. I like _moving;_ I suppose I'm not particular about how. I do roof and alleyway runs while waiting for it to get dark enough for you to come topside."

"How long have you been at this, Wild?" he wondered.

"Well, what 'this' do you mean, exactly? I used to play ice hockey, from about the time I was six, and I always exercised _hard_ for that." His brows raised in surprise. "I only quit about a year and a half ago."

"Why? Aside from not being tall enough, of course."

Wildcard stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, while everyone else was growing competitive, I was growing irritated it was hogging up all my time. Also I didn't feel like I was getting any better, just same old, same old. I think my dad blames himself, but I was already more interested in playing in the street by myself than playing on a team. Maybe I'm too independent. Oh! I brought something to show you, which I just remembered," and with that redirection of attention, she turned to her backpack and dug out a small sack, and then rejoined Sandro.

"More knives?" he wondered when he heard metal.

"Throwing stars," Wildcard picked out one and rubbed the edge against her palm. "I've never used them before, but I picked them up from a hobby store today. They're not sharpened, and they're not _great_ , but I was trying to think of something I could lob at you that wouldn't actually cause any real injury."

"Are you going to ask me to bring weapons tomorrow and deflect _throwing stars_?"

She grinned up at him. "Maybe?"

"Jokes on you Wild, I can actually do that," he grinned back. "Prepare for your inevitable defeat."

"Ooh-hoo! You're _on_ big guy. I will _decimate_ you!"

"Unlikely. But for now put those away, and show me your footwork again."

* * *

The two of them got back to the city a little late, and morning birds were calling betimes they'd reached recognizable streets. The sunrise wasn't threatening yet, but it couldn't be far off.

"I am probably going to have to make up a story about falling into a reservoir," Sandro remarked as he moved a manhole cover aside with a casual strength she envied. "Maybe I should dunk myself in the sewage to prove it."

Wildcard laughed. "I'll start setting alarms on my phone," she decided. "What time do we normally want to get home by? We need to sort that out first."

"I'll sleep on that. Ana?" He paused halfway into the shaft, arms resting on the asphalt.

"Hmm?" She thought he looked unexpectedly excited.

"It won't work today, my parents will be home soon. And you said the weekend was a bad idea. So if you want to see the Starwars movie, it has to be Monday."

She stiffened in surprise and then grinned from ear to ear. "Monday."

"Yeah. And, um, and if I don't call you back as soon as you send a text over the next few days, it's not cause I'm ignoring you or anything. I might just have to leave later in the evening because of... additional oversight."

"Well-well go on, then, stupid! Don't get _caught_!" she reminded him, and shooed him quickly down into the earth. "Go, go!"

* * *

[Author's Note] Apparently someone is a sci-fi buff...?

Leonardo: *Up late, watching Space Heroes reruns with nostalgia. Sighs heavily.*  
Baby Sandro: *Waddles out of bedroom, wearing pillowcase as cape, climbs into his lap to watch.* "I wuv dis one...!"  
Leonardo: *Instantly falls in love with child forever. Entrusts with old dolls/toys/models.*


	8. Nothing Good

[Author's Note] 'Mister Hamilton' was once accosted by a religiously-fanatical mother who told him that super hero comic books were going to make his daughter a terrorist. I seem to remember he broke down sobbing with laughter. Wildcard's also a Spider-Man fan.

* * *

"Daaad!" Anastasia whined as she came into the living room and vaulted the couch to flop into the cushions beside her father. She successfully refrained from spilling any milk from her bowl of cereal.

"What's eating ya, squirt?" he queried unflinching as he continued to peruse his newspaper. Anastasia often wondered if her father somehow managed to read magical information between the lines of ever piece of news he ever picked up; he seemed to know an uncannily huge amount of things about the movements of other supers.

"Put me on growth hormone," she wheedled.

"No," he answered with surprising finality.

"What! Why? Dad, I'm tiny and not growing. As an up-in-coming costumed ninja, this embarrasses me."

"Love the skin you're in," he replied.

"Daaaddd! Come onnn!" she complained through mouthfuls of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds.

"No can do, squirt. And if I see you steal any of the stuff and try to dose yourself, I will throw you over my knee and spank you."

She swallowed her cereal and squawked out a bewildered, " _Really_?" She couldn't remember ever receiving a threat quite like that before.

"Same with steroids, under-aged alcohol or tobacco consumption, hallucinogens, narcotics, psychedelics, etc. Steer clear of the drugs and performance enhancers."

Anastasia thought on this. "Huh. I don't think I have heard you take such a hard stance on _anything_ before."

"Put it this way, squirt: I've manipulated so many meat heads into killing or dying for my schemes that the abuse of chemical substances to solve personal problems is on the very top of the list of things you will never get me to budge on. The answer is a universal _no_."

She pointed at him with her spoon. "But growth hormone isn't addictive."

"Its like steroids, kid, it has _plenty_ of side effects and potential downfalls. To be honest, you should just count your lucky stars I know my science well enough to have you vaccinated. Remember that measles outbreak?" He shuddered. "Anyway, you aren't small enough to be worrying about this; you're a fine height for your age."

"Well," she muttered sullenly. "I guess now I just have to pray lots for a teenage growth spurt."

Her father folded up his newspaper into a t rectangle and then turned and fanned her face with it. "Can you feel that? The breeze."

"Yeah."

He folded the paper again to make it shorter, and fanned her again. "And how about now?"

"No, not really."

"So what has more air resistance when it's spinning about in midair? The tall person, or the short person? The average Olympic gymnast is just two inches taller than you; and those are grown women."

Anastasia thought about this.

"Being small," her father leaned back into the couch again and unfolded his newspaper to resume reading it, "is only as much a disadvantage as you pretend it is. The most poisonous animals on earth are tiny. You should never want to be an elephant if you've a choice to be—say—a black mamba."

"Kill Bill reference?" she queried, pleased.

Mr. Hamilton winked at her. "Always play to your personal strengths, squirt. If you find a weakness, find a new _strength_ to compensate for it, don't fight an uphill battle against it. Taking the bull by the horns is usually an inefficient expenditure of effort, and you're much smarter than that."

"Well," she kept eating. "In that case, is it possible to take on a bigger opponent empty-handed and win? I was thinking about myself. If somehow, miraculously, I were disarmed of every knife—which is admittedly unlikely—I'm just not strong enough to beat up a thug or bully."

"Usually in that situation you should try for a cheap shot and then escape. Watch self-defense demonstrations to pick up some more tricks."

"Well, is there any way to use my size to my _advantage_ , like you were saying? I'm proportionately strong, at least."

"Ooh." He flattened down his newspaper and squinted thoughtfully. "Yes. Look up 'Aikido' and do some research to see if that's what you're looking for. I was thinking about putting you in classes regardless; it's one of the only martial arts I've ever seen respond to a joint lock with 'well I guess if I can't turn my arm, I'll just flip my whole body to get out instead,' which looked right up your alley."

Anastasia pulled out her phone and began quickly typing in a search query as she finished her cereal and drank the milk from the bowl. "Isn't Judo about joint-locks and pins?"

"And throws. But judo is more like wrestling, and _you_ Anastasia don't want to ever get into a fair grapple in the first place; you want to side-step the initial lunge and send your foe crashing into a wall. Read about Jiujitsu, too. From what I've read, Aikido is purely defensive, and the basic movements are all circle stances and rolls, but it's entirely about redirecting an adversary's motion. They advertise it as advantaging shorter individuals."

"Do you know any of this stuff?" she wondered. "Throws, joint locks, etc?"

"A little bit, but I'm sorry to say that non-lethal take-downs were more the purview of my adversaries than myself. I've been looking into it for you, though. See what you think." He paused. "Think fast!"

Anastasia fell back, throwing her bowl and spoon into the air as a knife came across the couch and she caught it by the handle. She then caught the bowl on the top of the knife blade and managed to wobble it into staying upright, but the spoon landed hard in the bowl's edge and sent both flipping with residual milk going everywhere. "Crap," she complained of the poor sullied floor.

"Tut-tut," her father fanned out his newspaper again with a shake of his head. "I would say I'm disappointed, except that I actually owe you a kudos for _not cussing_ this time."

Anastasia laughed bashfully. "Was _that_ what you were after? Crafty of you, but I'm getting better!" She tossed the knife back—he caught it flawlessly—before going to clean up her mess.

* * *

Wildcard gave Sandro a few 'ping' messages (innocuous and ambiguous in case someone should ever pick up his phone and see them) after darkness fell, and kept herself busy walking a tight rope of pipes and wires. At around eleven, he texted her back: 'Rain Check,' which she reasoned meant his father or uncles were keeping a closer watch on him and he'd decided against sneaking out for the evening.

This left her to her own devices for the evening, and—ordinarily—she would have had no difficulty in finding plenty of activities with which to occupy herself. Nights never lasted long enough! But even after days of hanging out with Sandro, hanging out with Sandro was still all she could think about it. She now looked forward to tomorrow more than she was eager to enjoy tonight. What if he was still 'playing innocent' around his parents tomorrow? Then she supposed she might not see him till Monday.

Whelp. Time to find something to do. There was always trouble _somewhere_ , and Sandro had educated her all about Clan mafia footholds throughout the city. She'd practice in going unseen till morning, now that she'd had enough exercise for the day and gotten the majority of her lightning-like energy out earlier in the week. Her father was fantastic at gathering information just by watching and reading, and while she might never be at good at it as he was, she knew the basics.

Wait, that gave her an idea.

She texted her father.

'Dad, I'm bored,' she wrote. 'You doing anything?'

No sense learning everything on her own when she had the world's best tutor already out on the city somewhere. Come to think of it, she hadn't asked to go out with him since arriving in Jersey City, and that was likely to raise his suspicions if left uncorrected!

'YoU kNow WheRe the MiDdlEtoN mCdoNalds iS?' _the Joker_ texted back, clearly amused at this evolution in their night-time coordination methodology.

'Be right there Dad! 3'

* * *

Around midday, Mr. Hamilton was surprised to see that it was a familiar, sun-weathered, salt-and-pepper-haired, and muscular (but still nameless) woman who taught the Aikido at the Rec center. She had a small class of just nine students, and the addition of Anastasia made for the tenth. As the kids practiced their rolls across the mat behind her, she came up to greet him and Anastasia.

"We meet again," she hailed him.

"I see if I had let you get past 'Pole Fitness' you might have mentioned you teach _other_ types of fitness classes than yoga and gymnastics," he almost-apologized.

"Yeah, well, girl has to be 'fit' in more than one way to survive in any city." She smiled down at Anastasia. "I've seen you on the uneven bars and pommel horse in the gymnastics room, so don't think I'm going to go easy on you because you're starting slightly behind the other students."

Anastasia perked up. "If you went easy on me, it'd backfire in your face," she answered with a happ grin.

"That's the spirit. Let me ask you, kid, why are you interested in Aikido?"

"Well I think my dad is hoping this will teach me more patience if juxtaposed with normal exercise," she explained conversationally. "But mostly it's because I'm small and want to be able to beat up people bigger than me."

"Aikido's not going to teach you how to throw a mean punch. Girls sometimes do Muay Thai boxing if that's their fix. Aikido's about rhythm and avoidance."

Anastasia thought about that, and then said: "If I were an element, I'd be any element but earth. I'd be water, I'd be wind, I'd be fire. Can you teach me to fight like I'm a humming bird?"

The woman smirked and extended a hand. "The name's Jane." Anastasia took it.

"Ana."

Mr. Hamilton asked, wryly, "Is the last name 'Doe'?" and Jane looked up at him with a smirk.

"Well to that, all I have to say is: Not everyone _needs_ to be remembered." She straightened. "Lessons are an hour and a half long, and I don't tolerate skipping. Still interested?" She looked from Anastasia Hamilton to her father.

Anastasia wasn't certain if some kind of recognition transpired (because she couldn't have picked another name for this woman if she'd tried), or if it was all her imagination, or if maybe there was a weird kindred-spirit-thing going on where two people who had maybe-once-been-someone-else both sensed each other's harmless intentions and agreed to respect each other's privacy. Normally, she'd have thought her father would surely bristle at the slightest _clue_ they might have accidentally ran into another ex-super.

But her father didn't pull her out of the lessons or evidence any sign of concern. He just told her 'See you in a bit, squirt' and left it at that. And he probably wouldn't have done that for _anyone_ he recognized, not that Ana knew.

Jane smiled at her and gestured for her to joined the others. And when the older woman demonstrated the first maneuver they'd be practicing for the day—by outright _throwing_ a tall, twenty-year old student to show off the final form and then demonstrating an incomplete and easier exercise for newer students—Anastasia thought she might finally have something of a female role model to look up to for a bit.

And that was pretty cool.

After an exhausting session (and she was thoroughly sweaty afterwards), Anastasia hurried up to her father and tugged on his arm. "Do you know her from somewhere, or did you recognize her from something?" she asked in a whisper as they left the Rec.

"No," Mr. Hamilton admitted. "Not even slightly. Just got the feeling she was 'odd.' D'you like her as a teacher?"

"She's strict, sassy, competent, and nurturing simultaneously," Anastasia cheered. "I'll keep her!"

He chuckled. "Then maybe it doesn't matter who any of us were, if anyone at all." He reflected. "Except the al Ghuls. Stay away from them, their kids, the whole kit and caboodle. Nothing good's ever come out of that family. " He waved a hand. "And they're religious nuts on top of it."

"Speaking of religious nuts..." Anastasia pointed at a television screen above the treadmills, where subtitles helped clarify the story in an otherwise loud ambiance:

 _In a strange incident of vandalism, a toilet has exploded at the Savior Rises Nondenominational Church last night. Investigators say the toilet was literally equipped with an explosive device, but was apparently fitted with a payload made from—am I reading this right?—human waste collected under the bathroom. A woman—who has asked to go unnamed_ _—_ _was attempting to use the toilet when it exploded, apparently covering the bathroom, the woman, and the outside hall in several inches of_ poo _. You heard it first here, folks._

Anastasia looked slowly to her father. "Dad." This could only be the handiwork of one man.

"Can we get outside so I can laugh without making a scene?" he whispered urgently, his whole body shaking. "Because it's coming one way or another...!"


	9. Week in Review

[Author's Note] We get a clue who Sandro's father probably is. Also, Sandro continues to ignore plenty of good places to replace harsher curse words with 'shell.' Will also remind you TMNT comics exist in-universe and that Wild apparently used to read them!

* * *

Sandro was barely halfway out of the manhole when Wildcard pounced on him from behind with a demanding bellow of, "Where have you _been_!?"

Gah!

"I've been _being a saint_ ," he spat exasperatedly, reaching up to readjust her grip from his shell edge to his shoulder so she wasn't hanging of him at such an overbalance. A more immediate remedy to the problem of successfully getting out of the sewer than arguing with her to let go of him.

"It's been three days!" she wailed dramatically as he climbed out the last few rungs with her still atop him.

"Preaching to the choir, Wild," he muttered, but there was already a smile in his voice. "Now get off me; That's my shell, not your gondola."

Wildcard giggled—possibly more at his usage of 'gondola' in regular conversation than anything else—and slipped free as he knelt to cover up the sewer again. "What happened?" she asked him as she dug out a water bottle and gave it to him. "Was it your parents? Did they know you were sneaking out!?"

"No, thank God, or I wouldn't be here now." He cleaned off the sewage as best he could with the offer, and then wrung out his coat tail. "Just I made a call to play it safe. Didn't want to slip up because of how effing stifling it was down there; took a cold shower and made the decision to stay put till they'd left again."

Wildcard peered up at him as she took the bottle back. "You don't get along with your father, do you?"

A laugh came out of him, hard, unrestrained, and then he grimaced and looked down to her. "Gonna level with you Wild, I think this is the first week I managed not to get in an argument with my father in over a year. We still on for tomorrow?"

"You _bet_ ," she confirmed with a grin. "I even finished up all my homework over the weekend and hit my sneaking around mafia thugs quota to clear my schedule!"

"Oh really?" He wasn't sure how much of her to take seriously. "Tomorrow it is, then. Let's get out of here, go for a run or something."

"Sure. By the way, what are these?" she asked, abruptly drawing a _tonfa_ out from behind her and inspecting it. Sandro balked, and then reached up in surprise to where this weapon had previously been holstered with its sibling on his own back. Sure enough, one was missing.

"How did you get that out without me noticing?" he wondered. "It's called a 'tonfa.' It's a type of club, just has a perpendicular handle."

"'Tonfa.' Heh, nicking things from you is trivial!" she cooed gleefully as she tossed the cudgel back to him. He caught it, and re-holstered it as he followed her from the alleyway. "Are those what you brought to block my throwing stars with?"

"Hnh." He was slightly unnerved he'd been disarmed so easily, even if she had been hanging on to him at the time. "Yes, but you had better have been practicing something other than sleight of hand and loudmouthed taunts or this is going to be embarrassing for you."

Wildcard winked at him. "I got a bit of bite to my bark," she told him. "Race you to the wharf, one two three go-!"

"Hey!" Sandro cursed, laughed, and sprinted after her to keep up.

* * *

They set up in their usual empty lot, with Wildcard clearing away larger bits of debris and some fresh glass bottles away from where they intended to practice. Sandro stretched.

"Tell me when you're ready!" she called eventually as she tumbled forward onto her hands and did a handstand.

"Whenever you are," he called as he stood up and caught sight of her. She had her shoes off, for whatever reason—

—the throwing star that came flying at him was so unexpected he recoiled backwards in shock and barely lifted the arm of the tonfa up in time to catch it.

"How in the _shell_ did—Did you throw that _with your toes_!?" he demanded.

"You said you were ready when I was!" Wildcard cackled, springing back to her feet and holding up the stack of throwing stars with her fingers looped through the center. "Were you lying to me?"

Sandro's eyes narrowed. He sank into a defensive stance and gave both tonfa a whirl. "Throw," he said.

The next star came at him like a bullet, and with a rotation of the tonfa he smacked it down and to the side.

Wildcard grinned from ear to ear, slowly changing her position. The next star came low and to the left. The one after that was aimed high and to the right. He struck each away from himself with a different weapon, ( _THUCK! CHHK!_ ) and felt a smirk crawling on his face.

She sped up, throw by throw, until she'd all but eliminated the gap in between the tosses and was throwing two at a time; reducing everything to a rhythm, a dance, a warm-up exercise.

The rhythm broke and two stars came at once; she feinted throwing a third; then broke the rhythm and threw the third from there other hand instead, and the fourth came out at a staggered and disharmonious interval. He caught, one, two, the third-

" _Ow!"_ he winced, jumped reflexively backwards, and then broke out laughing. She'd actually hit him! She _could_ hit him, hard, and probably would have done so more than once if the majority of that hadn't been slow test of his reflexes!

"Did that cut you!?" she asked.

"Little bit," Sandro agreed, delighted, as he leaned over to see the tear the knife had made in his pant leg before getting caught in the material and sticking there. She'd definitely grazed him. He extracted the weapon from the pant leg and looked up as she rejoined him.

"I made sure they were blunted..." she murmured despondently.

He grinned at her. "If you think I've never been hit while training before, you've got the wrong impression. But... I'm apparently a sexist idiot and should have brought arm bracers and shin splints." He tossed the throwing star to her.

Wildcard blinked at him and then gave a devilish little smile. "You underestimated me," she realized. "Oh-ho, that's _rude_ of you Sandro! Do you not remember how we met _?_ "

"Won't happen again," Sandro grinned as he stood back up. "How about we do a Round Two? I'll help you collect the stars."

"I'll hit you again, if I try," she warned.

"Exactly," he looked fiercely to her. "Which should be a good incentive for me to move a bit faster!"

"Well if you're _sure_..." her expression of concern turned to one of mischief. "It will make me feel better about how quickly you can plant me on the ground during hand-to-hand practice."

* * *

They'd finished practicing for the day—stars and stances all included—and were cooling off with bottles of Powerade. The days were getting hotter.

"Okay, you need more protective gear," Wildcard groused as she spied the nick she'd left on his forearm.

"Yes I do," he grinned into the bottle he was drinking from, and then lowered it and smirked down at her. "Thank you for your concern, Wild, but it's just a scratch. 'Hazard of the occupation,' I think is how you put it"

She blinked but then laughed. "I guess it would be problematic if I were the only one going home with bruises. I might have to star employing the 'I fell down a stairs' explanation, and man would that get me funny looks!"

Sandro groaned, and passed her the bottle so she could drink. "You would, too."

"You smell ripe by the way," Wildcard informed him with a sudden topic change and a wink. "Like dead things and moss."

" _Ew_ ," he sniffed at himself and found it to be so. "Well, _sorry_... This gym doesn't come with showers."

"I could push you into the Hudson," she offered helpfully.

"I could pull you in after me," he muttered.

She snickered and said, "You need to start using deodorant."

"Awkward teenager problems," he sighed, hugging his arms to himself.

"Do-" she choked on a joke, "do you want to smell like Axe or like Old Spice? Cause in retrospect that commercial with the centaur was really considerate towards-"

He grabbed her and squeezed her to his side, right under his arm, and gave her a (gentle) knuckle sandwich

"Arglbeck sufffocatingg-wheeze-dying-!"

He laughed and eventually released her, and she pretended to swoon and die with a thud. Thought of course she piped up not twenty seconds later with a question from half behind him:

"Hey, I'm curious, can you feel touch against your shell?" She walked her fingers experimentally up the cartilage of it.

"Yeah," Sandro explained thoughtfully, "though it's not the same. The outer layer's technically alive if not particularly sensitive, so I can at least feel when a touch is happening. There's a 'cushion' of ceramic in the middle, but I can make out different kinds of pressure pretty easily. The lowest layer of it is made from my rib bones. Or my hips, depending on what part of it we're talking about."

She sat up and blinked at him in confusion. "Wait, where in pizza's name are your shoulder blades if your shell is made from your ribs?!"

" _Under_ my ribs," he explained wryly, "like any turtle's." He took the Powerade back to have another sip. "I don't have any more ribs than you do, either, so the shell and plastron just float over the abdominal and back muscles until they get to the pelvic and sacral bones."

"What's a _plastron_?"

"The front part of the shell...? Wait, Wildcard," he half turned towards her to get a straight answer, "this has been bothering me. You have the most hyperactive mind I've ever even heard of, and yet somehow you _haven't_ been Googling the hell out of turtles or ninjitsu or," he grimaced, " _ninja turtles_ for the past week?"

Wildcard blushed a little and seemed taken-aback. "Well... I thought it might be weird for me to do that," she explained, and rubbed at the back of her hood. "I mean, _normally_ yeah that sounds like something I'd do, but I was trying not to do anything too overeager or inconsiderate. I thought I'd just ask _you_ about you, and whatever you said would be all I'd need to know. I mean, you're not 'a turtle,' you're _Sandro_."

He tilted his head slightly and stared down at her for a moment before looking away. It took him a moment to say, "Thank you," but he really meant it.

* * *

The alleyway they'd chosen was dark, for all that it was eleven o'clock in the morning. It was sort of insane to think he was about to put every risk of exposure into the hands of someone he'd met just a week ago. Except it didn't feel crazy at all. That week had lasted a very long time, already. He waited for her to pull the manhole cover off to the side, and then quickly scaled those last few steps into the outside world. He closed the sewer up again for her, on seeing how heavy she found it. Admittedly, using a crowbar did make it easier.

Anastasia sheathed the implement into her backpack upside down and at a diagonal, and it was sort of impressive how she could just hide it like that with no on the wiser. She was in a regular T-shirt and shorts, which was not a state in which he had ever seen her; but when he realized how _hot_ it was he knew why.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked again.

"Pfft, I'm sure about almost everything I do!" she teased, her voice softer now after days of being yelled at to keep it down. "Well, mostly everything."

"I'll look really out of place," he muttered.

"You'll look exceptionally bad ass for a random dude in a brown trench coat. Especially next to me, when my T-shirt is branded with a pinup of Briareos from _Appleseed_. Which you need to watch, if you haven't, it's good. I'm _positive_ my plan is going to work and the whole area is basically a ghost town right now. But..." She lifted her chin and smiled at him. "You can still back out if this is giving you the willies, and I promise not to tease you about it. Honest to God."

Sandro was quiet for a moment, studying her. Their height difference normally made it accidentally easy for him to think of Wild as younger than himself... but that wasn't the case, and today—while out during _the_ day!—he now felt like the helpless child. After a moment he took a deep breath and held out a hand. "Ski mask, please."

She grinned and passed him the requested article, and stood guard while he donned it. Then she waved him out of the alleyway. "Remember," she said as he joined her, "your story is you are _self_ _conscious_ , but you're not a ninja who needs to be ready to snap out a weapon at a moment's notice. You can loosen up just a bit. Your body posture."

He made a conscious effort to untighten his shoulders. It was hot, which was uncomfortable just by virtue of the fact that it was unusual. The light was bright, which was also uncomfortable. Everything looked different, bathed in natural lighting. Wildcard giggled at him, and grasped his arm by the elbow and tugged him along for the bit. They J-walked across the road when it became clear no cars were coming (though he didn't lift his had and had to trust her judgement), and made it to the theater without seeing much of anyone.

He slowed to let her enter first, but it turned out their elaborate, time-released, staggered-approach was essentially unnecessary: the lady at the counter sold Wildcard two tickets without even looking twice at her or asking a single question, more interested in blowing bubblegum and playing Candy Crush than in keeping unaccompanied kids out of PG-13 movies.

Sandro followed Wildcard past the ticket queue and into the atrium, where she ran ahead of him again to purchase popcorn and drinks. He came up behind her rather than linger any further behind, if only because the general rules of their plan involved her keeping anyone from bumping into him. The theater really was essentially empty, with a single janitor cleaning up from the nigh before and just one person minding the concession stand. The guy at the concession stand attempted to ask Sandro if he wanted butter on the popcorn, but Wild answered for him and no one seemed to mind that.

It was sort of funny to think that 'loud and spoiled younger sister with meek older brother/father/relative' was an acceptable social pattern that people seemed to find endearing or excusable. Wildcard acted the role well enough, one supposed, rudely hollering for him to 'come on slowpoke!' As she gathered up their concessions and hurried past towards the movies. "The previews are already gonna be over, and I don't want to miss the intro!" He hurried after her, and they made it into the stadium seating long after the lights had already dimmed to prepare for the movie. Previews were showing on the big screen, and the audio was in full surround sound.

And she'd been right: a quick glance indicated there were only two other people in here, one clear at the top and the other far to the right. The two of them sat themselves in the front. As an added plus, the air conditioning unit appeared to be _right_ above them. Wildcard passed him the giant bucket of buttered popcorn, and fitted their drink into the cupholder between them.

"Can you use a straw?" she asked in a whisper.

"Yeah."

"Okay. Don't eat all the popcorn before I do."

Sandro tried to determine what that meant.

Then the Star Wars theme suddenly trumpeted around them and he looked quickly up as yellow words scrolled slowly across a star-speckled background. It dawned on him that they had actually made this plan work, and that he was going to get to see a movie on the screen for the first time ever, and with little-to-no danger. Wildcard reached over to grab some popcorn. He blinked down at her hand, and followed its motion back to where the silly girl was sitting all excited beside him with a crazy big grin on her face as she gave the giant screen the full of her attention. She stuffed the popcorn gracelessly into her mouth, and even lost a few pieces in the process, which ought to have been impossible for a person of her dexterity but clearly somehow wasn't.

And he knew for certain then—if he'd ever had any doubt about the matter—that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and that he wanted to be her friend for the rest of their lives.


	10. A Few Bytes of Life

_Welcome to Messenger, Anastasia! Your contact Sandro is presently Online._

* * *

A: Can't go out today. Have the flu.  
S: :O  
S: :'(  
S: hilariousCatsInBowlsCompilation. pdf  
A: I am seriously dying now. You couldn't wait for the cold to finish me off, you had to send the laughs to speed me along!?

* * *

A: I lost a throwing star last night. I'm only counting 49.  
S: photo1442. jpg  
A: OMG. How did neither of us notice this before sending you home?  
S: :shrug emoticon: Found it _right_ before going in the door. Would have been an odd conversation. 'Uh, why is there a throwing star sticking out of you?' *panic* 'Uh, I fell down the stairs!'  
A: :rolling on the floor laughing emoticon:

* * *

A: Are you 'at school' right now?  
S: Yup.  
A: Me too. Recommend to me some study music.  
S: 2StepsFromHell. playlist  
A: I said STUDY music, not 'I need a theme song for conquering the world in epic glory on my flaming unicorn bear by this afternoon'!  
S: theBestofMozartViolin. playlist  
A: It's a good thing I have you, classical is definitely the last place I would have naturally gone, and this is really soothing.  
S: :cheerleader emoticon:

* * *

A: What's this called? The hobby shop has throwing stars that just look like a sharpened cross. photo5534. jpg  
S: Edo period replica. Called a yagyu ryu juji shaken.  
A: Did you just somehow know that off the top of your head, or did you look it up?  
S: ):3

* * *

S: Help me.  
A: Are you dangling off a bridge somewhere, sweet damsel?  
A: Hellu? Sandro?  
A: I'm eating brkfst, might txt sloppy.  
S: Help.  
S: (-7x + 9)(-8x^2 - 2x + 7).  
A: Oh com on, that's easy, I don't even hav to right it dwn  
S: :begging emoticon:  
A: (56x^3 + 14x^2 -49x) + (-72x^2 - 18x + 63)  
A: 56x^3 - 58^2 - 67x + 63  
S: D: ...  
S: ... Did you just do that in your head?  
A: Yah I'm eating cereal. Dble check for me, will you, I mht have made a mistake.  
S: :facepalm emoticon: No, it's right. Thank you.

* * *

A: Hey can you speak Japanese?  
S: あなたは背が低い!  
A: Google Translate tells me you just used your amazing and awe-inspiring command of Japanese... to call me _short_.  
A: :| Rly Sandro.  
S: :D :D :D "七転び八起き" ;)  
A: ?  
S: It's an idiom.  
A: Google translate is apparently insufficiently badass to handle translating ancient Japanese idioms.  
S: "Fall down seven times, get up eight" :D  
A: Ty for explaining you are desensitizing me to being called short.  
S: :D!

* * *

(messages from yesterday)  
A: I can't read this.  
S: ?  
A: Anything. I can't read anything. I give up on life. Reading hates me. I hate paragraphs. It's paragraphs. Paragraphs are the devil. It's just a blur of black and white, black and white, and I stare at it and everything just gets mixed up in my head. It's all the same. The lines overlap and switch places.  
S: Calm down.  
S: Use highlighters and color pencils to color-code and visually break up the space.  
A: ...  
A: Holy fuck it like magic, 1 sec.

(messages from today)  
A: I owe you the soul of my firstborn son.  
A: Seriously.  
A: WTF, Sandro.  
A: I don't even understand why this never occurred to me before.  
A: You saved my life. I mean, it's still hard, but seriously. Wow.  
S: *Will take ice cream as alternative compensation to any and all promised souls*  
A: Eh, probably for the best, more reliable and quicker disbursements XD  
S: XD

* * *

S: Do you like Batman?  
A: From a safe distance? Yes.  
S: batDadVines. playlist  
A: This _literally_ had my dad sobbing on the floor all afternoon. XD  
S: Have you told your dad we are friends?  
A: No I would ask ur permission 1st.  
A: But he does not have problem with mutants. 100% sure.  
A: Now if you were 1/2 politician, we would be in trouble.  
S: XD

* * *

A: photo0012. jpg  
S: Why do you have a batarang...? Wait, is that _real_?  
A: Apparently 5-year-old-me asked for his autograph XD XD XD.  
S: OMG. How.  
A: XD XD Maybe 1 day I will tell u!  
S: :O !  
S: :envy emoticon:  
S: photo1444. jpg  
A: Holy shit, how many crazy different kinds of weapons do you have in your house!? How big is that wall!? WHY IS THERE A SHARPENED HOCKEY STICK!?  
S: ):3

* * *

A: I am writing an essay and need a word for something too big to be described in words and I used "comprehend" so I can't use "incomprehensible."  
S: Ineffable?  
A: TYTYTYTY TY TY...!  
A: Word for an imposing voice? Low, strong.  
S: try 'sonorous.'  
A: I am so far behind in English, and you can speak fancy English + Japanese XD XD XD  
S: And Spanish.  
A: OMG  
S: But not Math :'(  
A: :D  
A: With our powers combined...!

* * *

[Author's Note] The existence of the BatDad Vines gets even better when you remember that Batman is real in this universe.


	11. For Keeps

To say that repainting the exterior of the house had been a big job would have been an understatement. It took _forever_ , and Anastasia knew because she helped. First, layers and layers of fading paint had to be chipped and sanded off. Then the wood beneath had to be power washed, replaced, and/or treated for fungal and water damage. Even after this was done, the house needed to be proofed against further mold and insect incursions. Finally, at last, it was ready for a sunny coat of warm yellow paint and shutters of brown.

It was really one heck of a nice-looking little cottage under all the rough, Anastasia had to admit when they were done. She told her dad the neighborhood boys thought it was haunted. Mr. Hamilton laughed and told her that if ghosts were a thing, he'd already have them up to his ears and would be tracking down Whoopi Goldberg to exorcise them for him. Anastasia guessed correctly that this was a reference to a surprisingly good movie.

As hoped for, the house was keeping her father busy. She needed that bit of cover! In the past, Terra Smith had sneaked out of the house plenty of times, played hooky, and gone roof-spying and mischief-making with her father, but these activities had not taken up the bulk of her schedule and certainly hadn't been daily. Much of her life had been stuck in school or playing outside around the skate parks and half-finished construction sites.

So her father had likely noticed how little she was asking to go out with him and how consistently she was leaving the house on her own—it was _literally_ every evening and sometimes even during the day—but he hadn't' asked her any questions and seemed to be holding to his promise of letting her 'have space.' Still, it wasn't like her father to sit on his curiousity, and she'd promised in turn to tell him about 'exciting happenings.' He'd ask her, eventually, what she was up to. And when he did, what would she say? Would he ever _care_ who Sandro's family were? Maybe not.

Damn. She had plenty of time to think, but no deadline.

After a lifetime of keeping secrets—a lifetime of quickly adapting to new names, new faces, new friends, new places; a lifetime of conveniently leaving out details, of constant and authentic acting, of lies that became the truth—Anastasia Hamilton realized she wasn't entirely sure how to talk about 'secret' things with anyone. Even her father. Maybe Sandro could help her. Despite the fact that he was disobeying his family's cardinal rules, he was a much more grounded person than she was.

Anyway, back to story of the house: the house had been painted no more than three days before Anastasia came home at night to find a burglar had crept in through their kitchen window and was tied up courtesy of an automated bola launcher and trip wire. Her father was standing over the scene looking amused that such a convoluted trap had actually worked, and apparently trying to decide what to make of (dis)armed hooligan.

"Should we just call the police?" Anastasia asked. "Like normal people or something?"

Her father looked about the premises. "They'd want to come in and see where he broke through, and then we'd have to explain the bola. Or at least we'd need to clean up all the dart boards first. Plus the unconventional manner of capture might cause someone to run a newspaper article..."

"Just let me go, man!" the burglar pleaded, with a heavy ghetto accent and significant amounts of slang, but a very respectful tone of voice. "I'm sorry, I really am, yo, I won't do it again!"

"Hey chill," Anastasia told the burglar. "If it were just my dad here you'd have already been gutted, filled with rocks, sewn back up, and tossed into the river to drown. But you've got _me_ , your odds of survival have dramatically improved."

The burglar didn't talk to them much after that, but he did start crying. After some debate, Anastasia and Andrew Hamilton ended up asking him where he lived and then brought him down the street and returned him to his elderly mother. There was a lot of squawking and name calling and slapping about with a newspaper, but fortunately no one was seriously injured or dropped in a river.

"I can't be a hundred percent sure that's going to bite us in the back," Mr. Hamilton reflected as they walked home in the cool, predawn hours. "But it was really, _really_ funny to watch it play out like that. It's like we had a good cop/bad cop routine, but I couldn't actually tell which one _you_ were..."

"That poor kid," Anastasia snickered. "He probably would have rather we'd taken him to the police. Hey, I've a random question. Do you ever find it disconcerting that your palette for 'funny' is pretty tame these days?"

"Sometimes," he admitted. "But then I remind myself I did explode a week's worth of Sanctified Shit all over a self-righteous nit, and I _—_ _Snerk!—_ suspect I'm still the same person deep down, just a little _cuter_ in how I go about it all..!"

Anastasia glared at him, to his surprise. "So _you're_ allowed to swear, but I'm not?"

He straightened. "Oops. Um, well," he coughed, "in moderation."

"Oh yeah, sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself, Old Clown."

He crossed his arms and pouted but then the gleam of a smile entered his eyes. "Old Clown instead of 'Old Timer'? Hehe. I'm not _that_ old, squirt." He draped an arm around her and gave her a tight squeeze. "Alright, you got me, I'm sorry. Hey, um... How you liking Jersey? I know really didn't want to leave Gotham for good."

Anastasia blinked and then grinned wide. "You know, I think I'm actually warming up to it," she admitted. _Because 'can we stay here forever?' is still a bit too strong._

* * *

Wildcard was not a morning person, and so when Sandro abruptly called her and asked if she could get out early that morning, she was a little disoriented. She ended up floundering her way into the kitchen to a startled father, and asked him if maybe she could try some black coffee. Bemused, he poured her a mug of it and stirred in some cream and sugar.

It was pretty terrible, but she made do, and it woke her up enough that she was able to make herself breakfast and get ready for an early day.

The weather was balmy at ten in the morning when she reached the requested alleyway. She was surprised to find Sandro already topside and waiting for her. "What's up?" she asked as she jogged up to meet him, though he did not seem remotely upset. He seemed nervous, and maybe a little excited.

"I want to go for a walk in the park," he explained quietly, and with a giddy tone hiding somewhere on the backs of his words.

She raised a brow. "Erm?" The two of them went for walks just about every day, sometimes just for fun and sometimes on the way to one destination or another. Wildcard never had any shortage of ideas for places they could go and ways they could keep his face out of sight while doing it. Why wake her up so early for something so normal?

Sandro looked meaningfully out towards the golden rays of sunshine that slanted in the mouth of the alleyway, and it took her sleepy brain a moment to catch up. Of course: it was daytime. Sandro hardly _ever_ got to see the sun, and he was asking to go for a walk in full daylight in the park. For _him_ this was a very big deal! The only reason it was even possible was because she was there, and could chase away small toddlers who might otherwise bounce balls into him and create very big scenes if they saw his face.

Her face brightened to match the weather. "I think that sounds delightful," she agreed and reached out to tug at his coat sleeve. "C'mon mister fantastic trench coat. Let's get you a little indirect sunlight for a change!"

* * *

The grass was freshly cut, and had a sweet smell to it. College-aged and older young adults ran about playing Frisbee with one another, and with their dogs. Toddlers orbited little picnic sites and chased white-winged butterflies, and blew bubbles. Little old men read their newspapers from the benches, and occasionally fed large flocks of pigeons. The sun above was warm but friendly, with white clouds frequently drifting in the way as a soft breeze passed by. The sounds of the city were distant.

There was hardly anyone in the park their own age, not on a school day, not at a quarter past ten in the morning. Those few delinquents they did see were earbud deep in music, and swiping at phones. One of these individuals was so engrossed that Wildcard growled an 'excuse me' to get her to look up and divert course.

The two of them, Wildcard and Sandro, didn't have any goal in mind. They just walked, picking paths at random. They stopped to look at flowers, or to sit by and enjoy the white noise of a fountain.

"Is this weird?" Sandro asked her under the cover of such noise. He leaned over the fountain to peer at the goldfish within. He was taking tremendous pleasure in the mundane experience of it all, she could tell, and she wished he could simply take his coat off and soak in the sun. "Liking this. It's weird, right?"

"I don't know. I don't think you and I _ever_ feel normal," Wildcard supposed, "except for when we're hanging out together. So this is as normal as we say it is."

"Hnh, I _guess_. Thanks for hanging out with me on such short notice, by the way. I realize I threw your schedule off. I couldn't sleep." He frowned at her. "Hey, have you made any other friends since you've moved here?"

"I don't usually have any friends," she explained with a shrug, and ought to have left it at that, but instead added: "I didn't have any in Gotham."

His nose wrinkled. "Bulllshit." She looked quietly over at him and shrugged, and he tilted his head to the side. "No? _Why_? You could have any friends you wanted, you don't have to settle for the... the one who crawled out of the sewer. And you love attention. My face makes my lack of friends understandable; but you, you're _normal_."

Wildcard smiled thinly, and privately hated herself for each and every thing she didn't seem capable of just _telling_ him. "Only on the outside."

He pushed himself upright, and peered curiously at her. "What does that mean?"

She thought about the question, irritable with herself.

"Hey, what's up? Are you okay?"

Wildcard glanced up at him and smiled to cover the cracks. Poor Sandro had never seen her anything but bombastically chipper before. "Yup! C'mon, let's go get hotdogs."

"No you're not alright, you're _sullen_ ," he frowned at her, and seemed to strongly disapprove of her lie if his narrowed stare was any indication. "And you dodged the question. What's eating you?"

"Nothing, San. Come on!" She gave a dramatic eye-roll and skipped to get them both moving.

" _Stop_ that," the boy growled as he blocked her path. "You look as happy as if you'd just gotten a pizza served to you sans the cheese. You know, for someone I hang out with daily, you sure do deflect my questions a lot."

Wildcard bristled slightly, and—out of habit, not out of any malicious intent—began playing with the switchblade in her pocket. She didn't like the way this was going, and ought to have been able to divert everything better. _Just change the topic._ "I deflect everyone's questions! Look, Sandro, you're just friends with the odd girl is all-"

"That's just your excuse not to talk about yourself. I trust you with my safety daily and you really ought to consider trusting me _back_."

 _Ow. It's not that._ She dug her fingernails into one palm, and repeatedly opened and closed the switch-blade.

 _"_ Unless you need me to rescue you from armed thugs first? Is that how this goes? Eye for an eye type of thing? You know, the more these types of conversations go in circles, the more it seriously feels like you hide things from me for some reason. But why would you-"

"-because I hide everything, all the time, from everyone!" she blurted hatefully.

Sandro recoiled in surprise, and then glanced side to side. She'd startled a few people, but no one stayed to eavesdrop.

Dread crept up in her stomach. _Shit._ Her mind refused to conjure a laugh, and her face couldn't come up with a smile. Where had this come from? No, no, no, no. This was not a time to be hormonal and stupid and teenagery. The only safe place for that was while complaining to dad, or—heh!—while intimidating other girls. _Put it back away._ No one needed to see this unexpected, half-formed, vulnerable, inexplicably angry thing behind Anastasia Hamilton's mask. Definitely not Sandro, who shouldn't have to deal with it, or with figuring out what it even was. _Not safe._

"Wildcard, if you weren't ever going to let me be _your_ friend, in exchange for the rather sizable impression you've already left on my life, don't you think it was rather cruel of you to ever bait me out into the open with food—to talk with you—in the first place? If something ever happened to you, or even if you suddenly moved again, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I would be devastated. I'd kinda appreciate knowing what's going on with you... and why you're so upset. Or, are you just going to keep me at arm's length forever?"

 _He has a beautiful voice,_ Wildcard thought, as if she'd been hit by a landslide. _Warm._ Or maybe it was the cadence of it? He spoke and all the _everything_ sloughed out from within her and left her suddenly feeling exhausted and miserable with her feelings on her sleeves. She felt like she ought to have never gotten out of bed that morning; except that she absolutely ought to have because he was outside and _unafraid_. Wildcard squinted up at him wonderously, and then slowly shook her head. "I might suck at knowing how to be friends with anyone, but you shouldn't take that to mean I'm not trying."

"I... Are you alright...?" he asked slowly, stepping into her personal space to have a closer look at her.

"No, not really," she admitted in a quiet mumble. Then she stiffened, because Sandro reached around her and hugged her. No one had ever hugged her but her father, not that she remembered. She stayed there, wooden and paralyzed for a moment. Then she smooshed herself into him, and latched her arms about his waist and the back of his shell.

"How about now?" he asked simultaneously wry and concerned.

"Significantly better," she confessed into the muffle of his coat, and that was about the point at which she knew Sandro was as good as 'family' and she would remain friends with him no matter what else happened, or where she had to move, or what her dad had to say about the matter. This was for _keeps_ , and Anastasia was fucking old enough to have that say in the matter (like Marcy hadn't, like Veronica hadn't, like Terra hadn't).

He hadn't forgotten the original source of the argument, and yet he also didn't pester her about what she'd meant by 'always hiding everything from everyone.' "You gonna tell me what you meant about 'only being normal on the outside?'"

"Yeah." She took a deep breath. "I can see the future. I never let go of a knife without knowing exactly what will happen."

"... _Really_?"

"Yup. So, like, before you had arm guards and splints? That was rough. You were literally asking me to _choose_ to _intentionally_ cause injury to you. I'd already know if you'd get to blocking it in time, and I'd have to throw it anyway. It creeped me out that I actually went along withit."

Sandro blurted out a laugh. He didn't ask why that had been such a big secret; perhaps he could tell it would take more than just one line of follow-up to get to that, and she was better unwrapped in layers. After a moment he pushed her back a few inches and leaned over to smile at her. "Thank you."

Wildcard smiled for real this time, because his smiles were contagious. "No problem. But, seriously, can we get those hot dogs? Like I didn't successfully eat much breakfast before stumbling out of the house with a paper cup of icky, icky coffee in hand to get here."

"Damn straight, you're not the only one who's starving! Although make sure you get me a straw with our drinks, since I can't tilt my head back and expose my whole face to drink from a bottle."

"Roger that. C'mon!"

* * *

[Author's Note] I'm not sure if it's been clear that Wildcard will not end up 100% psychologically stable betimes she hits adulthood, despite how good a job her father did at providing for her ;) He did (somewhat unintentionally) keep her from forming any lasting or memorable relationships her entire childhood, which will have its repercussions down the line (anxiety, mood and identity issues, etc). But, hey, we all have something wrong with us, no matter who we are! How she deals with, succumbs to, or resolves these problems will make up part of her personality.


	12. Story Swapping

"Hey Sandro?" Wildcard wondered as the two of them reclined on the lawn and ate from a pile of hot dogs stacked on napkins between them. "You said you wanted to go for a walk because you couldn't sleep. Do you normally sleep during the day?"

"Whole family's basically nocturnal," he agreed. "Always been that way." And that made a form of sense, since they'd never put up any semblance or front of normality for anyone, not like Anastasia and her father.

Wildcard was keeping a sharp eye on the reactions around them; anyone who paused to stare would stand out fairly clearly owed to being immobile, giving her a sixth sense for when her friend might accidentally be visible. She positioned herself strategically to keep his head tilted towards her and to block out eyes with her body. She was very nearly considering buying a parasol to shield him from half the crowds. Then he might even get to lay back on the lawn!

"You know," she reflected, "it's kinda a crime you have to stay bundled up. You and I are athletic kids, we could be out there in T-shirts and shorts playing volleyball and Frisbee with the best of them! _Especially_ you. Have I mentioned how huge you are?"

He sighed. "I think about that sometimes. Wondering if, in the future, there will be enough mutants and enough mutant rights activists that turtle-people and lizard-people and whatever-people will be able to walk around like anyone else. Maybe there would still be hatred and racism, but we'd basically just have funny skin tones, right? One day. Not in my childhood."

"You'd be great at volleyball. Just saying."

"Well don't get any ideas. One of the reasons I don't show off my stripes is so that no one ever gets wind there _is_ a juvenile turtle. Much less one wandering the streets on his own, where anyone might try to stage an ambush to get to his parents."

"Oh I _see_." That was important info to keep in mind. "About your family: Do your uncles leave house at night, too?" she inquired. "Is that how _you_ manage to slip out from under them all the time?

He nodded and glanced about to see if any ears were too close. "But they go to keep an eye on Foot Clan territory, and you and I haven't even been going near. Ironically. Even if we did, we wouldn't bump into them unless I got particularly careless. God knows I've watched them enough years to know what to look for."

Wild thought about that, and then burst out laughing. "I found a partner in crime and have been getting in to trouble _less,_ " she realized. "How is that possible? We're doing wrong!" She looked to him. "So is your family a bunch of shadowy, night-time, ninja, crime-fighting, super heroes?"

"Um, kinda," he admitted bashfully.

"Who else knows about you all?" she thought to ask. "I've never seen you in the news. Do you guys interact much with other mutants or, like, with New York's supers? Clearly _someone_ put together a comic book, so it's not like you're entirely invisible."

"Oh. Friend of the family did _that_ to open a revenue stream for us." Then he added in a mutter: "Though Michelangelo co-writes..."

 _Of course he does._ "Well, that's honest money! Traditionally-forged Japanese weapons aren't cheap, and neither do I imagine is keeping a pantry stocked full of food sufficient for a small army of gigantic turtles..."

"Guess not. But as to your question: We all pretty much keep to ourselves. The Foot Clan is quiet, and we're quiet, and when we fight it tends to happen quietly. I heard Leo put it a funny way almost by accident once: That we _and_ the Foot Clan are all equally miffed when someone else's 'super people' stomp through dragging dirt everywhere because they didn't know to take their shoes off by the door."

Wildcard knew enough basics of Japanese culture to snicker. _Blue turtle confirmed._ "How _dare_ they."

"Heh. And, yeah, sometimes something big draws us all out into the open," Sandro continued, "but, for whatever reason, that always seems to end up taking the fight across the river into Manhatten anyway. So Jersey doesn't even know it has us, for the most part."

Wildcard supposed that wasn't unlike Batman himself, though very much unlike the Joker. "Huh," she realized. "Ninjas are apparently the polar opposite of Tony Stark."

" _Ha!"_ She was glad to get that laugh out of him! "Iron Man is probably the butt of lots of jokes and memes about _'Mericans_ ," Sandro agreed through a grin. "What about you? Tell me a story about yourself?"

Hmm. It wasn't that she didn't _want_ to. It was more that she wasn't sure how to structure things into decent, self-contained stories. "Well I'm a _terrible_ Ninja," she began. "I made a really bad oopsie our last day in Gotham, and that's why we had to leave in a hurry."

Sandro perked up. "What for you counts as an 'oopsie'? You normally try to get away with Jedi mind tricks to pretend nothing happened."

"Well you also know I'm _anything_ but subtle. Do you want to hear the whole story? I somewhat arbitrarily assaulted a mob caravan in the middle of the day."

" _What_?" He sat straighter and then turned to her to hear everything. "What for?"

"Honestly I'm not even sure anymore," she blurted with a toss of her hands. "It made sense at the time, and I was really excited about it and had been looking forward to it all week. Anyway! I waited for them at their rendezvous and led by rolling a pipe bomb out into the street." She watched his brows raise. "While that was causing a _fantastic_ car crash, I rolled smoke grenades out to obscure the crash site and used them—it was knockout gas—to sedate everyone as they stumbled out of the cars and recovered from the explosion, which was really smart of me. There was a lot of live gunfire, but the guys were disoriented, and I took out their guns by throwing knife—except one guy I had to kill."

Sandro's jaws slowly gaped open, his gaze shuttering incredulously. "You did all of that... for no reason...?" Ninja life was neither so Explosiontastic nor filled with random acts of violence.

"Well it was really _fun!_ " Wildcard admitted with a comically big shrug of both arms. "And I knew they were on some kind of big job, so what was the harm? Anyway, it turned out that the mob had just kidnapped the eight-year-old daughter of wealthy business tycoon Bruce Wayne, if you can believe it and she was in the rear car. When the crash happened, she'd fallen between the seats and gotten stuck, and of course I'd thrown knock-out gas aimed for downing men over two hundred pounds all over the place. _Fortunately_ , my dad had stalked me to the fight scene and he helped rescue her, and we rushed her to an emergency room, and she was okay. But, long story short, I was really sloppy, and we didn't want to end up in any awkward conversations with the police—or Batman or anyone else—and promptly dropped everything and skipped town."

Sandro leaned back and stared at her. He was silent a very long moment. "You aren't even slightly joking, are you?"

"Nope." She shook her head a few times before adding, "though the emotional fallout for me was a little more intense than I let on because Gotham was the longest I'd lived anywhere and I _really_ couldn't believe I'd blown our cover like that. At least I did it pretty spectacularly so I got points for flair, eh? Anyway my dad made me _swear_ to him I'd stop being stupid. He congratulated me, and chastised me, and then we made a deal: I'd stay out of danger, keep him updated, and improve my test grades; and in exchange he'd pull me out of school and let me roam Jersey at night." Wildcard guiltily looked down at her hands. "And I seriously broke that promise just days later by running towards rooftop gunshots and getting involved in another lethal fight, and I haven't fessed up to anything. And I _know_ this is like... the _one_ thing that could get him seriously mad with me. I though maybe you could advise me or at least calm me down, cause, like, in general you're a lot better kid than I am. No competition, even."

Sandro reflected on this for awhile, the story and the request. "Wow, you really are insane," he assessed, but before she could so much as flinch (or agree), he turned back to her with his advice: "Okay, look, Wild? I don't pretend to know much about how to confess things to fathers without starting huge arguments, but your dad seems _unusually_ forgiving and you seem to share each others' oddness. So, if I were you, I wouldn't take that for granted, and I'd want to get this off my chest now rather than with twenty or thirty other small accidents down the road. He'll probably appreciate you coming clean to him, and excuse you for making the 'wrong' decision on the spur of a moment, and it'll establish you trust him and that he can trust you to at least be honest with him."

Wildcard squirmed in place. "But- but where do I even start? What do I _say_?"

"Just keep it simple, and don't drag it out. Blurt it all in one go. Say 'Hey, dad, the other day I heard gunshots, and I went to go get a closer look before realizing that was the exact wrong thing to do. I got into trouble, exactly like I promised not to, but everything turned out okay. Are you mad?' There. Is that so impossible?"

Wildcard looked at her feet, and thought about it, and practiced saying the words in the back of her mind. "Maybe not so impossible." She looked up at him. "Would _your_ dad accept that explanation and forgive you?"

Sandro smirked. "My dad would murder me where I stood. But my dad is not your dad, and that's _clearly_ an important distinction."

"Hmm." Wildcard brightened up a bit. "Well, cut your dad some slack, Sandro. He doesn't sound like the easiest person to get along with, and his rules do seem pretty stern coming from someone who's apparently only around on weekends; but you aren't the one throwing pipe bombs in the street so clearly he did something right."

Sandro's expression evened out into something like begrudged tolerance. "Maybe. Anyway I don't want to talk about him. You going to finish that last hotdog or should I?"

"We should split it evenly in half: You can have the bun, and I can have the dog."

"Hmm. Well, Miss Crazy Pants, I fear your method would get far too much ketchup everywhere. Instead, I will break it it in half like a normal person, and you can pick which bun-and-hotdog-both-included portion you want. Fair?"

"Well... it's not as creative, but okay I trust your judgement."

* * *

They had a dilemma which hit about two in the afternoon: they were both exhausted. It would be awkward for them to go their separate ways, sneak back into their respective houses at odd hours of the day, sleep, and then sneak out again in time for evening. But where could they possibly nap for a few hours without being noticed or looking strange? The library? The sewers?

After some negotiation of their strategy, they realized they had to go with the most basic and mundane plan available to them: they bought a picnic blanket and found a park tree to nap under for a significant chunk of the afternoon. Hypothetically, if someone woke them up for some strange reason, Wildcard would have to be the one to deal with it, so she positioned herself farthest from the tree. Sandro pulled his hood low

Wildcard enjoyed the shade and the warmth and the background noises. She glanced over at him fussing.

"I am having second thoughts," a very tired Sandro informed her miserably as he awkwardly squirmed and kept a forearm draped over his hood to hold it down, just in case.

Realizing he was still miserably nervous, Wildcard crawled over and past his head flopped herself against his shoulder while he lay on his side, and flung out a hoodied arm over top of his head. "There. You are _completely_ covered," she yawned.

"This is still a terrible plan," the boy yawned but he closed his eyes again and nestled into her with a hand about her back to keep her where she was.

"You only say that because you have a small sample size!"

It was funny to think neither she nor Sandro were particularly comfortable with _touching_ , now were they? But this was nice, just depending on each other as a sort of psychological backup, reclining out in a park in late slummer with the smell of leaves and grass in the air, and not having a real care in the world.

During the nap, Wildcard learned her foresight did indeed work while she was unconscious. Twice, she woke up disoriented and groggy and blearily attempting to determine what might be on the verge of happening. The first time, a dog came close to investigate them and she got a face-full of friendly licks. The second time, someone wanted to rob them of their phones while they were sleeping, and she glared them off with eyes of daggers (instead of actual daggers). If anything, this confirmed her foresight wasn't completely dependent on having a clear visual on a target.

Sandro slept like a log. He didn't try to roll once, not in any direction, and he didn't wake up when she did. She was sort of impressed, and snuck a look down at his face to be sure he was out. Then, because she couldn't help herself (he was always so interesting to look at!), she carefully lifted a hand up into his hood and traced the sharp angles of his face. His skin texture ran from glossy and smooth, to normal and elastic, to rough and beaded.

Hehe. He was so _cool_. Okay, best not press her luck.

She nestled back into her over-sized turtle's shoulder to doze again.

* * *

"So can I ask you about the whole future sight thing?" Sandro asked as they stretched for exercise and sparring that evening. Sandro had brought tonfa with him even during the park walk, though he'd kept them holstered at his side and beneath the tail of his coat. She'd asked him a few days back why he liked the tonfa, and he'd explained they were some of the only 'live' weapons one could bring out in public without setting off alarm bells.

"Sure," Wildcard chirped as she bent over backwards and cracked her back. "It's not as exciting as it sounds."

"Well I gathered it has some obvious limitations, or nothing I say would ever remotely surprise you and you'd know all the answers to every school test you ever took. So how does it work, exactly?"

"Well basically I see the world as a kaleidoscope," she explained from a handstand, "because everyone and everything has a halo of most-likely possible futures bloomed out in _reflections_ around them. They only stretch a short distance into the future, unless the outcome has a very big, long-lasting, or dramatic effect. And it's not entirely clear to me how it works, because what I see seems to be based on an amalgamation of peoples' intents, their capabilities, the trajectories of inanimate objects, and the influence of chance. I guess I don't foretell the future so much as I have a preternatural ability to _anticipate_ whatever will happen next, and to adjust for it."

"Does it work on conversations, or is it more a visual and physical movement oriented thing?" he queried as he stretched each arm

"The latter. Theoretically, I still naturally manipulate every conversation because I read future facial expressions, but the rules get weird when I can't actually see something and you're always hooded, so conversation with you is more natural."

"So that sort of implies there are some things you can use this to 'see' without even looking towards them?"

"Yes!" she dropped from her handstand. "The obvious example is I could tell if someone were going to shoot me from behind, because then future me would be dead. And I could hit someone while my vision was partially obscured, because out of six or so guesses where I ought to throw a knife, only one of them would result in my target not being able to hit me back in the future. I can also pick up on major changes in body language. Big, clear-cut changes that stick for awhile—or forever. Explosions!"

"Of course one of your examples is 'explosions,'" he muttered dryly as he took off his coat and threw it to the side. Today's shirt was branded with the Nike logo, and orange. "You said 'out of six or so guesses,' so you are basically telling me you need to know _what_ to do and _how_ to do it before you can get a glimpse of what the outcome would be. Right?"

Wildcard gave him a double thumbs up. "Exactly. Which is why you can still grab me when I'm dancing circles around you: I'm not good enough to dodge you, and so no matter how many futures I sift through, I'll not find the one that lets me get away."

"There any downside to it?"

"Well the reflections overwhelm me sometimes. My father says he very carefully weened me into contact with more and more people when I was a baby, to try and help me get used to all the extra information. It's possible my brain is also naturally _good_ at sorting through all that extra shit. Still, tightly packed crowds make me woozy."

"Can you not repress it?" he wondered as he stood and gave his tonfas a few warm-up twirls and went through the steps of a practice _kata_.

"Not even slightly. Like, let me explain my problem with reading: I read present and future simultaneously, and all the sentences overlap and mix together. Movies and music and real life are all easy by comparison, because everything is continuous and has vocal inflections, and goes together in a neat _stream_. But blocks of text have no reference points. I just get lost..."

He straightened and considered this. "That color-coding really helped you out," he realized as she pulled out her throwing stars.

"Seriously Sandro, you're a genius for figuring that out. And you barely even knew what the problem was at the time."

"Sometimes simple works!" he laughed. "You said it was blurring together, so I suggested you make different parts stand out differently. Anyway, you clearly have no trouble reading some of your other text books, so I get the impression this primarily happens when you're trying to read literature?"

"Or history," she sighed heavily, tossing stars into the air and catching them. "A lot of times I give up and download audio books, but Language Arts is the _one area_ where you have to actually read. And you have to be able to do composition, which is hard when you can't read. Dad keeps stressing I need to practice, but it's so frustrating I get _bored_."

"Maybe you just need to know something about the logic and theory behind story structure and plotting, or how they organize history books, to try and help you anchor narratives together?" he supposed. "I guess that wouldn't help for reading crap like _As I Lay Dying_ , or... anything else they actually want you to read in LA. Hmm." He considered these hardships. "Maybe I could try and help you figure out some different ways to approach the problem. You could bring me your course books."

"Oh?" she was juggling five stars at a time. "Hey! Why not? We can tutor each-other in everything. Wait a minute." She caught the stars and squinted at him. "If we're both home-schooled, and we're both in the same grade... What are the odds our parents might just happen to be using the same online teaching services, testing services, and/or books and curriculum for us?"

Sandro thought about this. "We must research this further. Home schoolers only have to pass a standardized test at least once annually by law, but my mother picked a curriculum that supplies intermediary tests once a month throughout the year. I'll get back to you on the name of it. Might help you out regardless since you want to have some proof on whether your aptitude's lifting. You ready?"

"I am _always_ ready to throw things, San, jeez! I could throw things in my sleep! No, really, I always stuff my phone in my drawer if I plan to use it as an alarm clock, because some hilarious things have happened to it previously..."

" _Throw,_ " he demanded with a boyish grin as he dripped into a defensive stance.

...

Sitting across a factory wall from the duo, with his tilted back against the tin garage door to better listen to their banter, a man was quiet. He was dressed head-to-toe in black and with his face smeared dark in greasepaint, and his forearms rested upon his knees. Acid eyes were shuttered and a mouth was pressed thoughtful and thin.

 _Hmm_.

* * *

[Author's Note] Oh Hai Joker. Don't hurt Sandro, we like him.


	13. It Followed me Home, Dad!

When it became clear the hurricane was going to make it over the Appalachian, and hit New York and the surrounding territories ( _again_ ), a wave of Anti-Super sentiment crashed onto social media networks. Trending hashtag dominance was torn between 1) the people who were _sure_ the hurricane had been caused by the Supers, and 2) the people who wanted to know why the Supers weren't going to _stop_ the hurricane. As rain poured across New Jersey and the winds blew trees sideways, Wildcard thumbed irritably through her newsfeed as she waited for her turn on the rock wall and fervently prayed the Rec wouldn't close.

 _This morning, the former X-Men operative known only as 'Storm' agreed to give a statement to the press. Ignoring pointed accusations about her powers, Storm referred to the reporters as 'idiots' who preferred to seek out magical explanations for their problems. "I will begin feeling mildly obligated to interfere with hurricanes the day you all halve carbon emissions, recycle your garbage, and start taking responsibility for each other's healthcare expenses._ _" She then promptly stretched out and dropped her microphone, and turned and walked away. Social media feeds exploded with both support and backlash._

"Wow," Wildcard realized with a snicker, "being right _loudly_ is even more divisive than lobbing insults." That was an important life lesson, maybe. She didn't imagine Storm had made any new environmentalists that morning; everyone was now just rallying harder to their original war banners. Hmm. Or maybe she'd hoped to convert a few more mutant-supporters? No wonder the Joker had mocked politics; it was so much easier to get everyone on the same side—or at least to make them show their true colors—by simply exploding something.

Food for thought.

Her phone rang and she jumped and lifted it to her ear. "San?" she wondered.

"The flooding down here is bad," he told her. "Tunnels are going to be filled to the roof in a few hours."

"Had a feeling. Am I on my own for the evening?" She was already at high risk for cabin fever, and the worst hadn't even started yet!

"Can you meet me early, instead?" he countered, equally terrified of the possible cabin fever epidemic.

"Ooh. Consider me on my way." She spun about and lunged for her backpack. "Where am I headed?"

* * *

The rain was hitting the ground like an army was standing upstairs with the worlds' most powerful Super Soakers and just letting loose on the pavement. It danced in the whipping wind, and proved umbrellas entirely useless. Wildcard was literally in a large yellow rain jacket with galoshes up to her knees and the tops of the boots wrapped with duct tape and plastic bags to keep water out. Well-to-do people sneered pityingly at her as they smuggled themselves back into their cars.

She plodded her way into one of their better and more sheltered alleyways, and pulled out her crowbar as she glanced up towards the roof above. A canvas-wrapped 'storage shed' someone had erected in gross defiance of fire codes and safety laws kept off much of the rain. No spies looked to be afoot, either. She stuck the tip of the crowbar into the manhole cover, heaved, and pulled the metal to the side.

 _It's, huff, getting a *little* easier...!_

Wildcard shined her flashlight into the darkness below, and then stiffened. "Whoa," she murmured, because the walkways were completely covered in a river of fast-moving gray water. She was just about to give Sandro another call to tell him about the situation when she heard soft splashes echoing in the darkness below, and the crouched down to wait.

A few seconds later, the splash of an arm and mottled brown shell came into view, and then Sandro had grabbed hold of the ladder and heaved himself out of the water. He was decidedly under-dressed and carrying something like a plastic duffle bag. "Coast clear?" he called up to her, and Wildcard stopped staring at his interesting self long enough to look around.

"Completely," she agreed and stayed on watch as he climbed up the rest of the ladder and sat himself on the edge. "Did you just swim through raw sewage?"

" _Yep_ ," Sandro agreed with a grimace, glancing around at the patter of dripping water. At least they weren't being directly hit by any rain. He settled down his duffle bag and she realized it had a water-tight seal to it as he opened it up and extracted some soap and a towel. "Happens _shockingly_ often to turtles who lives in sewers."

She glanced to him in amusement as he made a quick effort to rinse and dry himself, but then her shoulders drooped and her eyes widened and she quickly looked him up and down. The plastron was sufficient covering, at least, and it wasn't like he was sitting provocatively, but he still had apparently made this swim sans all clothing. Technically the cartoon turtles hadn't worn any clothing ever. And no one had ever commented on that. "Uh, Sandro-"

"Shut up Wild, I know, minor oversight. Notice I am seated _firmly on the ground_ so that addle-headed maniacs can't accidentally trip themselves for curiosity's sake and make life unnecessarily awkward for both of us."

 _Wow, he knows how to stop me better than I know how to stop me._ He pulled fresh clothing free from the bag, complete with cargo pants. "Um, Sandro, do-"

"Excuse me." He glared at her suspiciously, and pulled his clothing into his lap. But she just wanted to ask- "Hey, you are _staring_. Haven't you ever been in a showers before after hockey?" _But-!_ "Yo. Breech of etiquette. Earth to Wildcard. _Turn around stupid_!"

"But do you have a _tail_?!" she finally demanded.

He threw a wet towel at her face. "Stop looking at me long enough for me to put my pants on!"

"I NEED TO KNOW!" she bellowed.

"YES I HAVE A TAIL NOW LOOK AWAY!" He pitched a boot.

Wildcard oofed at the boot and fell back with a peal of laughter at how completely and unnecessarily awkward this had become, and then—because it was funnier and funnier the longer she thought about it—she laughed and laughed and laughed and kicked her feet at the air. This was the _best_ comeuppance for the stinky armpit noogie she could have possibly asked for.

* * *

"You did that on purpose," her best friend sulked grouchily, once more fully and modestly clothed, as he leaned over to see if she'd died of laughter. He had a rain-proofed overcoat on, and it was just as long and hooded just as deeply as his regular fair.

" _Yes_." Wildcard grinned up at him with a grin that likely stretched from ear to ear. "Why so serious?" she wondered toothily.

"Clearly one of us has to be," he griped.

Wildcard cackled and squirmed back and forward in a full-body head shake. "No! Serious is for people who do the same thing every day in the expectation of an improvement!" She folded her arms under the back of her head to cushion it, and crossed her legs to leisurely enjoy the soaked alleyway ground and gutter run-off like it was a plush couch in an expensive mansion.

Sandro was unimpressed and planted his hands on his hips. "Like martial arts _kata_ , which are all about repetition?" he asked dryly.

"Repetition in expectation of a change! Haven't you ever heard that's the definition of insanity!?"

"You might be paraphrasing for your own benefit, crazy little clown." But he smirked a little, apparently forgiving her, and offered her a hand up. "It's a little unfair you can't be pranked, by the way."

Wildcard sat up and took the offered hand, and brushed herself clear of mud as she stood. "That's not so! I might even _let_ myself be pranked," she decided. "If it was a good prank. You'd have to think on it. Don't let knowledge of my abilities _limit_ you, or I will be severely disappointed...!"

"I know someone who would appreciate this challenge, and it is _very_ unfortunately I can't ask him for backup," Sandro reflected. "So, what are we doing today? Aside from having awkward conversations."

Wildcard hopped towards the alleyway, and then staggered as the wind caught her. "Well first we have to try and keep me from being blown away by the hurricane. After that: I could smuggle you into the Rec with all the other displaced children and amuse myself learning just how much weight you can bench."

"Maybe let's avoid crowded buildings," he walked out beside her, effectively blocking the wind. Grr, she was jealous of how little it moved him! "You see the news coverage on whole 'mutants and natural disasters' thing?"

Oh! Wildcard made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. "Yeah. Now that I know you, I'm noticing that bullshit a lot more. I mean it wasn't like I really thought of myself as someone who could be _discriminated against._ Who is going to notice I'm odd without me telling them?"

"Well you could try talking them to fifteen seconds. They'd surely figure out you're 'odd' if nothing else."

Wildcard giggled. "Touche." Verbal pranks would always work on her, that was for sure. "Anyway now that my best friend is a turtle, it's a lot more personal. Well! Let's go see the waves! That might be cool."

"Oh boy, we're gonna get splashed aren't we."

"Like that's even a question."

* * *

Mr. Hamilton hummed to himself to alleviate stress as he unboxed the freshly purchased dishes, rinsed them off, and settled them down to dry on a dish towel. He had been given a choice between a Spider-Man print or a floral one, and had picked the latter out of silent rebuke of a girl who wasn't telling him anything but whom he hadn't yet worked up the momentum to confront.

It wasn't like shadowing Anastasia was new; he'd been following Terra ever since she'd started sneaking out of the house back in Gotham. As long as he didn't intervene and stayed well out of sight, she'd been none the wiser, and both of them had been able to have their cake and eat it too. It had been a perfect solution, and had even ensured he'd be on hand in the event of a critical emergency.

But... actually _telling_ her that sounded something like confessing to a breach of trust. Like it was spying on her. And, so, the simple matter of calling her out on her deceit... had become wrapped up in personal guilt and—occasionally—spurts of aimless adrenaline and panic.

The sound of keys twisting in the front door lock seemed to come much, much too early in the evening, no matter the storm raging outside. _Surely_ a girl who broke promises as easily as Anastasia Hamilton, a girl who kept so many secrets from her family and broke every line (Just as soon as they were made!), would still be out frolicking in the freakishly aggressive storm betimes dusk ran to dawn. Maybe she'd even be dangling daringly from the lightning rods to spite him.

He opened the cabinets and reached up to put bowls and cups away, and resolved himself to not saying anything just yet.

But the door opened to Anastasia's chipper, "Hey dad!" and he was midway through a reflexive (if begrudged),

"Hey squirt-"

when she added on, "can we hang out here today?" and the key word she fixed him with was: _We_.

Mr. Hamilton looked to her with a snap, freezing mid-motion whilst storing a tea mug. He was quiet a beat, and felt almost like he'd been caught red-handed with a cookie jar upended before him, despite being in no position of the sort. Um. How was he supposed to answer that? Should he ask who 'we' was? The Joker looked up and down and side to side without moving an inch, as if the architecture or upholstery might feed him with a line. No such luck. Quick! Improvise—

"—Yes."

Phew, that had been a close one. He'd nearly been speechless, and that would have been utterly unacceptable!

"Awesome! Come on San, he doesn't bite!"

The quiet boy who shuffled awkwardly into the house upon Anastasia's wake was already almost as tall as Mr. Hamilton, and could have easily passed for seventeen or older in that coat. Watertight boots and black gloves almost entirely obscured the boy's wrists and ankles, though what could be seen of them was still thin enough to suggest at youth.

But ultimately it was the boy's voice that provided the same giveaway to Mr. Hamilton as it had to his daughter, as 'San' stammered a shy: "N-nice to meet you, Sir."

Okay, _that_ was adorable.

The Joker, who was still in the same place as last time, tried to decide what exactly he was supposed to do next. He was smiling, at least, and hopefully less like an axe murderer and more like someone who had been confronted with a disarming teddy bear. Hmm. He finally remembered to set the tea mug where it belonged, and backed up a step to dry his hands off with a dish towel. "Well this is unexpected. When's the last time _you've_ brought someone home to visit?"

"Hehe, I _know_. This is Sandro, Dad," Anastasia introduced them as she hastily got her rain jacket off and hung it up to dry. "I'm adopting him."

"I see that. Didn't want to give me a heads up first?" Mr. Hamilton wondered discretely.

"What for? Your face? Trust me, Dad, Sandro's _way_ too fixated on his own." Anastasia then turned to her friend with a wry grin and boldly mimed the shape of a glasgow smile with her fingers to explain what they were referencing.

 _Well. *This* is bold of her. No pretenses at all._

"C'mon San. You really _can_ take off your coat."

"Ana, are you-" but when Sandro delayed in complying with the queen's wishes, Anastasia hopped back to him and started unbuttoning his coat for him. He half-heartedly attempted to stop her before concluding he'd already damned himself just by passing through the threshold, and so surrendered and even dutifully turned to let her pull it off his back.

Mr. Hamilton glanced to him and there paused, blinking curiously. Sandro winced a little, and then bashfully chafed his own arm in a classic display of nervousness. Mr. Hamilton inclined his head, thought about this all, and then neatly filed it away. He turned and headed for the refrigerator. "Have you two eaten?" He called to his perplexing child.

"No, we had nowhere to sit," Anastasia explained grumpily as she threw herself over the back of the couch to land upside down upon its cushions with a huff. "Everything is packed with people, and Sandro is understandably allergic to eyeballs. So we're starving. To death. If you don't feed us we might die. Me first, I weigh less. Fewer reserves."

"I _see_. And does this poor friend of yours happen to eat pasta?"

"Um," Sandro answered, unfolding a bit from his crumpled defensive posture near the door, "I eat anything, Sir. You... don't mind that I'm very obviously a mutant?"

"Mind you?" Mr. Hamilton smirked as he pulled out a bowl of sauce from the refrigerator, and then shot the boy a bemused smile. "With that little troublemaker I've got over there on the couch behind you? To be honest, you'd need a song and dance number just to even _surprise_ me anymore. Go ahead, sit down; Here's as safe or calm as anywhere. Or, if you're really aiming to impress, see if you can get her to clean out her sugar glider's cage for me."


	14. Good Influence

Sandro watched Mr. Hamilton uncertainly for a moment; because he could count the number of people who had ever seen him on his fingers, and this reaction had been even more anticlimactic than Wildcard—Anastasia's—own. But, after a moment, he inched into the house and wove around the couch to come over and peer down at an upside down Ana where she'd plopped on the couch and appeared to be looking for a remote between the cushions.

"I feel like I need an instruction manual," he whispered to her.

Ana gave him a knowing look instead of a grin, and then shrugged as best as the couch cushions would allow. "Hey it's not like I know how to do the normal teenager thing either. You wanna play a game?"

Sandro considered the offer. "What's a sugar glider and why haven't you been cleaning its cage?"

"Mumu!" she exclaimed, and tried to sit upright, but then faltered prematurely when apparently she couldn't decide how to do so gracefully. "Um, I'll show you-" He reached down and offered a hand, and she took it, and he dragged her off the back of the couch to set her upright again. Without evidencing a single sign of disorientation, she kept hold of his hand and immediately dragged him off. "C'mon!"

Anastasia pulled him across the house and over to the winding metal staircase that led up into a very small second floor. Sandro followed, curious now instead of entirely nervous.

Still in the kitchen, Mr. Hamilton left the water alone on the stove for a moment, and leaned back to watch as heavy footsteps disappeared en route up to his daughter's bedroom.

 _Wait a minute. Hmm._ He squinted. _When are fathers supposed to start glaring dangerously at young boys who hang out with young girls? Thirteen? Sixteen?_ He plopped his hands on his hips and pursed his lips to consider the dilemma. _Fifteen? Okay, fifteen sounds good. I can do fifteen._ He docked his head to the side. _It's a pity I don't have any friends to consult on the matter._ The Joker's face screwed up in incredulity. _Did I just wish for friends? Wow._ _Am I sick?_ He felt his own forehead. _I must just be getting old, finally._

But then a slow smirk writhed across his face, because he'd thought of something else. _Poor Helena Wayne is not going to be able to successfully date until she's twenty-two and has preemptively secured a restraining order on behalf of the poor boy in question. Every time she tries, she'll be preemptively stopped by a traumatic memory of her homecoming date tied up upside down with daddy's Batman voice thundering 'WHO SENT YOU?!'_

He~hE~He~hE~He~hE~!

He turned back to the water, which had begun to boil, and reached out to open a fresh pack of _penne_ noodles as he deliberated exactly how much of it to make... _Better too much than too little, no?_ If one multiplied Sandro's weight category by Anastasia's appetite, one arrived at a hefty amount of food...!

* * *

"This is Mumu," Anastasia explained as she opened up the bird cage. "And please excuse him if he's not feeling his manners today; he used to get to travel with me all the time, until I came dangerously close to splattering him on a roll one day and realized real-life animal companions aren't as immune to dying as cartoon ones..."

She brought out the sleepy little possum, who had just been getting ready to wake up for the evening, and then turned to present him up to Sandro.

The boy blinked in surprise and then crouched down to have a better look at the pale, pink-nosed, and be-striped little creature. "Whoa. What _is_ he?"

"A sugar glider! They're not really related to flying squirrels, but it's the same basic premise." She pulled out the skin flaps on Mumu's side. "See? These is his 'wing skin!' I mean, he can't _fly_ but he falls with style!"

"Does he bite?"

"No—or, I don't _think_ so," she considered the question, and inspected her tiny pet. "Sugars kinda famously exhibit imprint behavior, kinda like geese do, so he can definitely recognize me and my dad and might be more leery about new people. Plus I've been ignoring him lately. I don't know. Want to try holding him anyway?"

"Okay. If it won't scare him too much?"

"Nah, he'll probably sniff about and then jump back to me after a bit, I'd wager."

Sandro hesitantly held out his hands, and Anastasia settled the tiny possum into them. Mumu definitely didn't know what to make of this giant odd-colored person who smelled incredibly peculiar. He looked up Sandro in bewilderment, as if confronted by an unsolvable problem. Ana pet his back, and guided Sandro to do likewise.

"He's so _tiny_ ," her enormous best friend laughed. "I'm afraid to squish him. Look at that itty bitty nose of his...!"

Mumu seemed to feel this was all acceptable behavior from Sandro, but then twisted about and jumped straight at Ana's face. Ana yelped prematurely, which warned Sandro what was about to happen, and lifted up her hands in plenty of time to catch the flying creature.

"Do you have any pets?" she inquired of the turtle as Mumu climbed onto the top of her head and surveyed his kingdom.

"Oh boy. _Yes_ ," he admitted, and that sounded like the prelude to a story. "Do you have any idea how many scaly pets this city's irresponsible adults end up flushing down toilets in order to abandon them? Well, a small percentage of them do successfully make it into the sewers alive, and we have a large collection of snakes and more than a few odd lizards, turtles, you name it. Donatello strung up a filter system so that the majority of the fish ended up getting strained into a 'pond.' But the capstone came to us one day when little toddler-me waddled up to Donatello carrying a dwarf crocodile roughly as long as I was, and announcing proudly that her name was 'Smiles'."

Anastasia grinned so hard and so fast she felt the need to slap both hands over her mouth, and then still broke out snorting and giggling none-the-less. "What!?" _Purple Turtle confirmed._

"And I still _have_ Lady Smiles-A-Lot, if you can believe it," he laughed. "Though—proportionately speaking—she's significantly smaller and less intimidating to the adults. She's always been the sweetest tempered old lady, though, so I'm not exactly sure why anyone threw her away in the first place. Donatello couldn't even get her to snap at him without deliberately tapping on her tongue to trigger a bite reflex. Honestly, I used her as a pillow sometimes."

"That's unspeakably _adorable._ How long do crocs live?" Ana wondered, surprised to hear the creature had been 'old' upon coming into Sandro's keeping. Or was that just a way of better-describing her overall demeanor?

"Almost as long as turtles," Sandro answered. "What about Mumu?"

"Sugar gliders only live about twelve years. Mumu's five, so he's already like this cute, portly, middle-aged little man. Who barks. I know you don't believe me, but just wait till he thinks I'm not going to feed him. He totally barks like a tiny, helium-filled dog."

"I see!" That got a laugh out of him.

"Yeah, and I used to have a rabbit, but he died shortly before I met you. Small mammals don't have long lifespans, it seems. Apparently not anything like alligators and turtles, anyway."

"I'm sorry." He shifted awkwardly. "So do you want my help cleaning his cage?"

* * *

They bagged up a lot of super-stinky waste and replaced it with clean newspaper and bedding, and then Mumu did indeed bark and bark and bark like a little sputtering balloon, until at last they managed to get his bowl filled with food. He proceeded to pig out in his dish, and Ana closed the cage door behind him.

"I think I've nearly stepped on six knives since I've been in here," Sandro remarked conversationally once the deed was done and it was clear Mumu would be occupied for quite some time.

"Dad says I'm a slob," Ana said with a big grin up at him. "He's probably right."

The months since her move had given Anastasia some time to settle in, and Sandro looked around at walls covered in super hero posters, news clippings, and anime pin-ups. Noticeably absent was a lack of anything native to Gotham, both in terms of villainous portrayals and heroic ones, which was strange for a girl who had clearly loved living there. Her bedspread was crumpled, and covered in unfolded Hoodies and socks that had never been properly stowed, but it was easy to see it was red, blue, and Spider-Man patterned. In contrast, her pillow was pink and bordered in white lace.

There were dart boards on the walls, and an assortment of knives, spikes, stars, and other weapons stuffed into sacks and crates. The only orderly part of the room—somewhat counter-intuitively—was a desk that had books and notebooks neatly organized upon it.

 _Wait a minute._ Sandro blinked rapidly, and then walked over to it without thinking to ask for permission. "You're in _Chemistry_?" He reached over and lifted up the edges of her text books, and was surprised to see a label for Calculus. He glanced back to her. "That's _well_ above our grade."

Anastasia shifted uncomfortably and then gave a big shrug. "I don't know about that. It only makes it more noticeable how bad I am at reading. English. History. Other languages. I'm in remedial _everything_. You can't get far like that. You have to be able to apply, and that takes being able to compose and express your thoughts."

Sandro considered this problem. "I will help you," he repeated his earlier offer, but then tapped upon the Calc book. "But you help me back, mm?"

She wiggled in place. "Promise not to get frustrated when I get frustrated at myself and then get more frustrated for being frustrated?"

"Heh. No problem, loudmouth," he grinned.

She beamed at him as if relieved, and it was like he'd won a gold medal.

"Kids!" Mr. Hamilton called up to them from the kitchen. "Food's done!"

And there was really no quicker way to get _either_ of them down the stairs than that, though Wildcard seriously cheated by jumping off the balcony railing and dropping down onto the couch. "Feed~Me~Seymour~!" she sang, and that was likely a reference to another movie worth seeing.

* * *

Mr. Hamilton continued to be impressed by how much teenagers could eat, and tried to recall if he'd been similar once. Unfortunately that recalled remembering childhood, and his had a delightful multiple choice disorder to rival Anastasia's most hazy reflections.

"This is really good," a very respectful turtle boy complimented between forkfuls of noodles. "Thank you for cooking."

"There's no cheese!" Anastasia complained for no other reason than to complain, as she was gobbling food up as eagerly as a starved wolf.

"Not everything has to have cheese." Sandro scolded her, and then broke out laughing/choking when the girl sat up straight and rapidly crossed herself.

 _What a banterful dynamic,_ Mr Hamilton mused, _a-_ mused. "Thank you, Sandro. Out of curiousity, how old are you?"

"Um," the boy cleared his throat and made sure he'd properly swallowed his food this time. "Only thirteen. I-I know I'm, um, big."

"I see," Mr. Hamilton tilted his head to the side as he loaded his own fork with noodles. "Explains why the imp came home one day whining about about growth hormone." He took a bite.

Sandro straightened and then eyed Anastasia in a critical way that nearly put Mr. Hamilton to laughing. "Being tall's not all it's cracked up to be," he told her with a huff as he went back to eating.

"Says the person who's not suffering from shortness," Anastasia griped. "Anyway Dad said 'no' and reminded me I'm much better than you at flips. So _nyah nyah_!" She stuck her tongue out at him. Sandro covered her face with a hand. She sputtered and batted his arm away, laughing.

Mr. Hamilton looked down at his food was quiet (but smiling) as he listened to the children jab one another while they ate. _You are playing recklessly loose with information around the child of a 'superhero_ _.' As if, lacking for much family, you went out and found yourself a brother. From the worst/best possible place._ He took another bite, and glanced up at her. _But it's been a very long time since I've seen you play with someone._

And, indeed, Anastasia had upped her game and was now sticking out a tongue-full of half-chewed food at Sandro, who looked like he was just about to be baited into doing likewise in a childish game of chicken. "How did you two manage to bump into one another?" Mr. Hamilton intervened, rescuing the boy from stooping to her level.

"It was right after Nibbles died," Anastasia explained. "Rest in peace—and pieces—sweet valiant Nibblets. I mean _Nibbles_. Sandro and I both go out at night. I bribed him with pizza to make him talk to me."

 _Oh sure, butter me up with bad puns._ "That was quite some time ago." _And you have been rather exclusive companions since._

"Hey, Sandro's self conscious! I was going to tell you eventually," she giggled. Mr. Hamilton sighed silently, wagering he knew better. And he was about to be proven right:

Sandro, who had just loaded up another fork, suddenly turned and stared down at Anastasia. When Ana affected not to notice him, the boy narrowed his eyes at her and then—apparently—kicked her under the table.

"Wh- Ow! What was that for?!" Anastasia demanded half in advance of the actual kicking as Mr. Hamilton blinked between the two of them.

Sandro jerked his chin towards the other side of the table demonstratively. Mr. Hamilton raised a brow and waited. _Is someone's perfectly balanced diversionary dance about to topple...?_

Anastasia hesitated. She looked from friend to father, and then sat back and looked at her hands. "Okay, okay. Um. He was being chased by thugs, so I helped him out." Sandro cleared his throat. "He was being chased by three armed thugs." Turtle Stare. "Who were part of the local mafia." Stare. "And I killed them." Staarreee. She hugged herself. "One of them had a shotgun, which is how I heard them from so far away."

Joker was very quiet for a moment, mouth thin. Then he said: "You _promised_ me."

Buttercup bit her lip. "I know," she mumbled defeatedly.

The Joker sat down his fork and made to stand but Sandro interjected: "She's been trying to work up the courage to tell you for weeks, sir."

Hands against the table, Mr. Hamilton was quiet for a moment. He looked back to Anastasia, who was cringed down in her chair and looked confused and slightly frightened about what to expect from him. He grimaced and shook his head. "Squirt, if you think I set rules for the fun of it, or because I've some well-hidden authoritarian bent, I'm going to be disappointed in your grasp of my character," he breathed out. "I want you not to _die_. I want to let you outside without feeling the need to shadow you against your knowledge. I want you to _prove_ I can trust your judgement skills. And, most importantly, I want you to actually _enjoy_ childhood while it's still lingering about to be enjoyed." He threw down his napkin, scooped up his half-finished plate, and turned to go to the sink and wash it off. Anything to get him away from the table, and from his terrified child.

She was more frightened of _him_ than of _gunshots_. _What priorities!_ (Though for anyone else it would have been spot-on— _hey now, that's not helping, Inner Voice_.) He'd barely ever even yelled at this ridiculous child across the whole scope of her life, much less swatted her! He'd spanked her once when she'd tried to upend a pot of boiling water on herself as a toddler. The _threat_ of a spank was enough to drive home his meaning at every other point, no? _Frustrated. Frustrated!_ What to say? _Just wash dishes. Clean new dishes. Keep occupied. Do not throw things. Do not throw a fit._ The house was small and there was no going outside at this hour. He'd just have to keep busy at the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," he heard Anastasia mumble, her voice thick as if she were on the verge of crying. "I didn't realize how stupid it was 'till a turtle was nearly falling on top of me, and then I saw they'd _shoot_ him, and I couldn't've just... just run away or pretended I wasn't there. And we haven't gotten in trouble since, I'm being honest about that!"

Mr. Hamilton closed his eyes. Both times she'd done something dangerous (both times he'd found out about), she'd unexpectedly rescued someone. She had an uncanny ability to accidentally be in the wrong/right place at the right/wrong time. "Just... finish eating, and go play video games for awhile," he told her quietly. "We'll talk later, after you and I have both calmed down."

* * *

Sandro poked and prodded Ana into finishing her food, and then accompanied her into the living room when she finally gave up on the last few noodles. She turned the television on to a random news station, sat down on the floor in front of the couch to block all vision of the kitchen, and pushed the volume to max while she rummaged unseeing through a library of PlayStation games.

"So," Sandro whispered to her, "I'd give an arm and a leg for that reaction from my own dad." And not just because it had been delivered in an incredibly even tone, either, but because her dad had been able to _explain_ _himself_ and his anger in a clear way. Even Sandro, on hearing him talk that way, had wondered what his own family would feel if they'd known how much trouble he'd gotten into that day. Anastasia's lucky timing, unique skill set, and unintended element of surprise had probably–

"I know," she mumbled, voice garbled with what looked to be a lot of unnecessary guilt and dread. "You don't have to rub it in."

"–Ana... Wildcard. I've a serious question." And it had only just occurred to him to ask. She looked up at him uncertainly, her face heated up despite the fact that she hadn't even cried yet. "Wild, what did you see happen to me that night, a few steps into the future, if you hadn't shouted something and intervened?"

Her crumpled brows smoothed out, and her entire face mellowed into a strange sort of zoned-out expression. "I watched your head explode," she said slowly and matter-of-factly. "Or, well, _implode?_ There wouldn't have been much left of it still holding together by the end, either way. It must have been a slug he was using, and not buckshot. Buckshot wouldn't have done that."

Sandro stared at her, stunned by her glaze-eyed way of transmitting this information. "Wild..." he began, humbled and unnerved, as an ugly realization slowly dawned. "Do you see _yourself_ die a lot?"

"Every day," she agreed, still in some incredibly weird state of zen. "Every time I jump. Every time I stand at the crosswalk, watching traffic go by. Whenever I'm on the gymnastics beam. When I juggle knives. All the time."

He got the impression her father did not know that. It sounded bizarrely private, and like it belonged to an entirely different part of herself which other people didn't get to see. After an uncertain glance back towards the kitchen, Sandro came up to sit beside her and reached behind to rub her back and shoulder to try and pull her out of this _fugue_ she seemed to have fallen into. "Thank you." She blinked at him uncertainly. "For saving my life. For being my friend."

Wildcard stared up at him in vague bafflement for a long moment. Then she jerked slightly, as if coming awake from a near dose-off. She took a slow breath, blinked rapidly, lowered her head, and then leaned heavily into him. He put his other arm around her and pulled her into tight squeeze. He could feel bouncy curls of hair under his chin.

 _Mine._

"You mad at me?" he asked her after a bit.

"No," she confessed. "Thank you for making me tell the truth."

He smiled fondly to himself, but perked up as he noticed something wrapped up just behind the PlayStation. He squinted at the rolls of material, and then looked down quickly through her stack of games. "You own _Dance Dance Revolution_ ," he realized.

"Oh, yeah, I love it," she said, rubbing at her face and sitting back up slowly. He released her. "It helps me train the same brain muscles as reading, actually."

He frowned at her. "Because of all the arrows blurring together?"

She nodded. "It's linked to sound and I sorta memorize the songs anyway, but it lets me hop around instead of keeping me stuck at a desk so I really like it. I keep buying new versions and trading the old ones in."

"We must immediately compete to determine who is the best," he informed her sagely. "There can only be one master of the dance."

Her eyes widened. Then a grin split her face again. "You are _on,_ " she growled excitedly, and reached for the bundled controllers.

* * *

When (very loud) electronica music spilled across the house, Mr. Hamilton did finally allow himself to look back across the kitchen and watch the children. They were turned away from him and trading taunts as they geared up for the first steps of what appeared to be single-combat-by-form-of-dance.

Anastasia had brought this boy home after weeks of silence, without a warning and without an apology. She'd immediately and blatantly flaunted the fact that she intended to tell him some things she truly oughtn't, and gone so far as to _point out_ the glasgow smile. Then, exercising her charisma almost hamishly thick, she'd proceeded to steer every conversation to avoid any discussion of his martial training, extracurricular activities, or parents, as if—by force of personality and enthusiasm alone—she could get her father to play along and go 'Oh well, whatever, have fun!' (Which, to be fair, might actually have been within her list of capabilities).

But all of this she did as if no one's safety was at stake. As if they hadn't let Gotham because of a leak of information.

 _On the other hand..._ Mr. Hamilton looked from Anastasia to Sandro as the two of them stepped and stomped at an equally rapid pace through the opening lines of the song. He squinted thoughtfully.

 _...Clearly someone is a good influence on someone._


	15. Mr Hamato

"I can't believe we _tied six_ _times in a row_ ," Sandro panted, reaching for his duffel bag to get that towel back out. "How does that *pant* even happen at this game?"

"I can't believe _—ha!—_ someone so huge can move his feet so fast!" she laughed breathlessly as she mopped sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. "Oh mah _gawd_. 'Paranoia Survivor Max' is literally the hardest song in the game! _Ha!_ You really are something else, you know that San?"

And he _was_ , but the way she'd said it must felt good, because she saw him flash a grin as he rubbed the towel over his head and neck. Today's purple shirt was soaked in sweat. He sniffed himself and then drew out a tube of—she leaned over to look!— _Old Spice_ deodorant was the winner! Wooo! She momentarily entertained the notion of Old Spice using the turtles as its poster boys. One could probably imagine Michelangelo pulling off the commercial's: 'Now look at me, now look at your man, now look at me, now back at your man; Sadly your man isn't me, but he could smell like me-' routine. He~he~he!

"Hey let me borrow that," she came up to demand as he finished.

"What? Oh. _No_. Why?"

"I stink too!"

"Is your shower broken, clown? Go walk outside for fifteen seconds with no coat on," Sandro dared her with a grin still on his angular mug as he aired his shirt out.

"Bah. I'll get my own stick and smell like flowers and baby powder then, _sigh_." Dramatic pouting as she skipped away. Pause. "Also you really shouldn't dare me to take any form of shower, there could be hilarious unintended consequences."

"I was hoping that having an older adult in the house would stop you from making a joke like that, but thanks Ana, thanks for making it abundantly clear early on in our friendship that you literally have no filter at all, regardless of audience."

She gave him a double thumbs up. "Says the boy who was butt nekkid swimmin' through a sewer earlier toda- _Ow_!"

He hit her in the head with a thrown stick of deodorant, and she let it happen because it was hilarious. "God damn it Wild, we've been over this, _I have a completely internalized reproductive system;_ There is nothing to see in the first place, and I still affected discretion! What is _wrong with you_!?"

Wildcard cackled manically and promptly deodorized herself with the thrown stick. "Do I smell of deer musk, pine shavings, and awkwardly prepubescent turtle right now-!?" she demanded, and then squealed in horror as he lunged at her because this time she actually couldn't' get away. Sandro snagged her elbow as she tried to flee, hauled her back to himself, and put her in an easily headlock with just one arm. "Aeei! Ow-ow-ow-! Not the face! Aaah! I give up! I yield! Uncle! Fuck _you_ , haha-!"

Mr. Hamilton called to them from the kitchen: "No swearing in the house. _Either_ of you." Sandro released Wi- _Anastasia-_ and stepped back guiltily with a cringe and a submissive glance towards her father, but Mr. Hamilton hadn't even turned towards them. "And Anastasia, be nice to your guest."

"Yes dad," she droned dutifully. Sandro looked to her questioningly, and she leaned near the turtle and whispered an explanation: "He knows I'm full of hot air," which made a sort of sense.

"Sorry, sir," he said, because he'd cursed too, and because the two of them had gotten incredibly loud just to be audible over the television. Which they probably ought to have turned down, anyway. Although the storm was still really loud outside, too.

"Hey!" Anastasia exclaimed, hopping up with a rapid clap. "I know an idea for a game. But we have to be careful, if we ruin the upholstery dad will be cross."

"If it involves you throwing sharp objects at me," Sandro knew Anastasia very well, "your foresight means any damaged upholstery will actually be your own fault, even if I were to deliberately intend on sabotaging you."

She narrowed her eyes at him and then lifted a finger to point up at him with. "You're good at this, Mister Turtle." Her eyes widened thoughtfully and she cocked her head. "Wait, do you have a last name?"

He straightened. "I have a surname, but it goes first in the Japanese convention. _Hamato_ ," he explained. "Hamato Sandro."

"Very well." She lowered her voice. "You're good at this, _Mister Hamato_."

He blinked wonderously down at her. "That sounds incredibly ominous and epic when you say it like that."

Ana planted her hands on her hips and waggled a brow with a satisfied smirk, telling him, "I have evil laughter to go with it, would you like to hear it?"

He wrinkled his nose in confusion. "How many different laughters do you _have_ , Wild? Most people have one or two at most. I've heard at last _seven_ from you."

"I'm something of a laughter connoisseur," his miniature best friend explained conversationally. "I collect the best specimens I can find."

"Of course you do," he muttered, leaning back and crossing his arms expectantly. "Well, let's hear it."

"Muhehehe... hahahaha..." lightning cracked in the background, mid hurricane, as she threw back her head and curled her fingers, "Muaahahahahahaha( _hehehe_ )haha~haha~HAHAHAHA-HA. HA. _HAAA_!"

A long pause stretched after she had finished. "Did you time the lightning?" Sandro asked at last, sounding disturbed.

She snapped her fingers and pointed at him with both pointers. "Damn _straight_ I timed that lightning. Now!" She cleared her throat and flicked her hands demonstratively, "as to the game. You've noticed there are dartboards scattered around the house, seemingly at random?"

* * *

Mr. Hamilton turned the kitchen chair around, sat himself down, crossed his legs, and slurp on coffee. He watched live knife after live knife sail across the living room, slowly at first and then faster. Kamas flashed left and right in fast, decisive hits, striking the knives into boards or crates.

"Can you hit the board to my side?" Anastasia called.

" _Throw_ ," demanded the boy with a grin, and she did so. He smacked the knife back hard enough to send it all the way back to her, and it bounced off its target at her side but nevertheless struck the board. " _Boo_ ya! Another!"

Mr. Hamilton considered that he probably ought to have considered living in a warehouse if children were going to lob pointy objects about his parlor, as there really wasn't enough space for them to train freely. Or, then again, perhaps this would teach them accuracy and self-control. He slurped his coffee. _The latter is not a virtue I'd have an easy time teaching on my lonesome._

"Okay, here's a challenge. KNIFE!" Anastasia bellowed,

so Mr. Hamilton reached behind himself and grabbed the full-length bread knife out from the stand behind him, and gave it a curt and casual whip in her direction. Sandro jumped slightly when Anastasia caught the handle right out of the air without even looking. (And little did Sandro realize how much of a trick that _really_ was, when Anastasia could not feel her father's reflections and had to catch on different instincts than were normal for her).

"Hey, these are _nice_ , when did we get these?" Anastasia complemented as she tossed the lengthy bread knife and caught it again.

"A fancy kitchen goods store had a blow out sale about a week back," Mr. Smith offered conversationally. "Nice job not losing a finger, by the way." He slurped his coffee.

"Hey, you're the one throwing it." She added for Sandro's benefit, "He puts the handle right into my palm, it's not magic! It's timing!" And that was all the warning the turtle boy got before she flung the improvised weapon in a quarter-toss towards the turtle. And he, remarkably, hit the tip clear into the target beside him.

They were fast learners. Both of them. They lived and breathed in each physical movement; in the intuitive geometry and spacial orientation of the tools and contexts in which they were playing. At least for now it was still only _play_.

 _Her kill count is up to four._

He suspected it wouldn't stop there, which would make for a dangerous recipe if she ever ended up in the position to be arrested. At present she still clearly demonstrated empathy for victims of attacks. But what if she drew the attention of another young vigilante—someone she could beat—and they thought her _foe_ instead of friend? The answer to that remained unknown. Anastasia would end up figuring out the lesson herself, on the spot, in the very moments in which it happened; and that was all likely to happen much sooner than he wanted it to.

Or perhaps not.

Once more, the interesting part of this dilemma was _Sandro's_ behavior, not necessarily Anastasia's. This 'super hero boy' was still playing with her, despite all the tell-tale signs she might be trouble, despite the signs _Joker_ might be trouble, and though his sheer size called into mind fools like Clark Kent, there was something shrewd and sharp behind those reptillian eyes and in the lilt of his speaking voice. Sandro knew—or guessed—the basic silhouette of what he was dealing with, and had implicitly agreed to hang around anyways. Which was a somewhat disarming show of faith. Naive, perhaps. _But not necessarily wrong. I'm retired, after all._

Mr. Hamilton tapped his mug thoughtfully as he watched knives fly back and forth, back and forth.

 _Let us enumerate the pros and cons._

 _Cons: 1) We need to remain hidden, and he could expose us even unintentionally. 2) His family is not a subsection of people we want knowing about us, period. 3) Ninjas are rather difficult to hide from. 4) Anastasia is not a paragon of moral virtue and, should he disapprove of her choices, the situation may sour rapidly; as they are still teenagers and make dramatic and foolish decisions off the cuff at the worst possible times._

 _Pros: 1) There has been a sharp reduction in under-aged vigilantism as they are spending time with one another instead. And playing. Almost like normal children. Finally. 2) The boy is six feet tall, fast, and capable of acting the role of a meat shield in an emergency. 3) He comes from a family that values the moral characteristics Anastasia seems to want to emulate, including discretion; possibly making him a good role model. 4) He is respectful, and did not allow her to continue lying to me._

Mr. Hamilton was quiet a moment, still tapping his mug.

 _5) He is disarmingly adorable for a gigantic, insecure, teenage reptile. Say: That's one more pro than I had cons, isn't it? Well, guess that solves it._

The oven timer gave a _ding_ and Mr. Hamilton stood and went to go attend to it. Behind him, the knife-throws tapered off and then halted altogether. "Wait a minute!" Anastasia called. "What smells like heaven?"

"I made cookies," Mr. Hamilton explained, drawing out the first tray and setting it to cool off on the stove top.

"R-really!?"

"Yes. But you don't get any," the Joker continued matter-of-factly.

"Wait, what?"

"You lied to me, Anastasia. Your friend did not lie to me. He may have the cookies. You may not. His reward; your punishment. _And_ he gets to lick the bowl clean, too, by the way."

Anastasia gaped at him from behind for a moment and then said. "You made cookies for Sandro?" She was quiet a beat. "Can I taste-test them for arsenic first?"

The Joker turned about and glanced at her in bemusement. Then he dipped his finger into the batter sitting beside the oven, scooped up a thick gob of it, and put it on his tongue to eat it. He swallowed (hey, this recipe was getting better and better), and showed her the cleaned finger. "Tada. No deal, squirt, I'm eating them too. You can just sit over there, thinking about what you've done, salivating in vain, while we pig out on cookies." _And batter. Which everyone knows is actually the best part of making cookies._

"But... but... _but_...!" There was no quicker way to Anastasia's brain than through her stomach. Sandro glanced at her. She glared at her turtle with wide-eyes mimed killing him with a dagger if he betrayed her and went along with this. The boy slowly grinned, his eyes shuttering.

"Try one, Sandro!" the Joker offered him one just as soon as they were cool enough. "They're chocolate chip, and really at their best while warm."

And, to his credit, Sandro did indeed come up to help him mete out this punishment, and that was what made it well and truly funny. Anastasia stomped and shouted inarticulately and finally just came in and flopped at the table to suffer in silence where, at least, she could smell the cookies and pretend to be eating them. That was good enough for the Joker:

 _Hamato Sandro_ could stay.


	16. Don't Worry, We're All Ninjas Here

"Alright Ana, you _really really really_ want a cookie?"

"Yes." Pout.

Sandro stuck his tongue out at her (and he had quite a broad tongue to suit the shape of his mouth) fully complete with pre-chewed cookie.

Anastasia bluffed him out _fantastically_ by biting at him with a sharp clack of her teeth, and he jerked back out of harm's way in shock before nearly choking on that cookie, laughing. He finished eating before he accidentally lost some cookie through his nose or something, and drank water to wash it down.

They heard a loud thud outside and turned their attention to the A-Frame's windows, where an uprooted tree slowly slid across the front lawn, illuminated under the streetlights. Mr. Hamilton made a discontented hum in the back of his throat. "Well, there go my tulips," he sighed with a slight toss of his hands.

"I thought we got away from this when we left Tampa," Anatasia murmured wondrously. The tree stuttered by as if dragged by an unseen hand. "Should we get in the _basement_ or something? San, did you know they don't have basements in Florida? Its probably cause the whole state is level with the water table."

Sandro looked to her in surprise. "How many different places have you lived?"

"Oh, dad and I have lived _everywhere_ ," Anastasia droned with much less enthusiasm than would have been normal, her tone hopefully communicating to her dad they'd _better_ not be moving just because she'd met Sandro. "We used to have to pick up and move all the time, but not so much anymore." Then she slapped her hands against the table and stammered an inarticulate warning: "Oh- _hey_ -dark-!"

Then the power suddenly went out and all light and sound ceased; leaving them in utter darkness as the whole city went black from top to bottom and side to side. Light vanished from all along the Hudson River. The storm drowned out the universe.

Silence reigned across the room for a moment. They appreciated just how dark midnight was in a hurricane, without electricity. It was black. Everything was just _black_.

"Put. The cookie. Down."

"Sweet Jesus, Dad, how can you see where I _am_?"

"Parent Senses were Tingling," Mr. Hamilton drawled as he reached back to the counter-top behind him. "Also, you'd have been the first one to get your phone out to use as a flashlight if you weren't doing some illicit." He flicked his own phone open to get a little light, and stood to rummage for a candle.

"Yeah? Well...! Try not to light any dynamite fuses this time!" Ana needled grumpily as she sank back into her chair.

"Tch. I told you ten times, squirt, that was entirely intentional and merely a _temporary_ solution until I found an actual candle," Mr. Hamilton retorted. "Nag nag nag, safety, nag nag nag, as if I were some sort of amateur and didn't know how to be careful around explosives." He returned to the table with a box of matches in one hand and a cinnamon scented candle in the other, and set the latter down to strike a flame from the former.

"Uh. Was that just a made-up story to pull my tail?" Sandro wondered hesitantly, as if he already knew the answer.

Anastasia wondered why it hadn't occurred to her to literally pull his tail why the lights had been out; that would have been _hilarious_ , and she hadn't actually gotten to see it earlier.

"It was not," the Joker admitted frankly as he lit the candle and waved the match out. "There we go."

"I think Da saw it on a cartoon once," Ana whispered loudly to Sandro, as if taddeling, "and then couldn't resist himself when the lights went out while he was actually holding a stick of the stuff. Admittedly, it would have been a _lot_ funnier if someone other than me had been there to appreciate it; I just screamed at him to stop being so immature."

Joker hummed as if pleased with himself as he pushed the new light to the middle of the table and turned to rummage for more candles. "For reference, Sandro, you are in no danger whatsoever in my household, or from me." He glanced at the boy with a smile, but then gestured with his head at Anastasia. "Though her I'm not sure about; she's quite possibly Evil." He furrowed his brows playfully. "Best stay on your guard."

"For additional reference," Ana confided in the boy. "I'm really good at not letting things explode. And don't let him scare you, he cries while watching soap operas just like a middle-aged, unhappily married woman."

" _Hey_!" Joker protested with a stagger. "You _little_ -!"

"Your phone's about to ring," Anastasia said with a startled look to Sandro, who stiffened in alarm (it said something that he hadn't _previously_ been alarmed), and quickly dug the phone out. Sure enough, the device sprung to life not an instant later, and he stood and stepped away from the table to go talk to her.

" _Mom_?" Anastasia heard him croak guiltily.

By the chatter on the other end, someone wanted to know where their Bouncing Baby Boy was. _Oh dear._ Far too late for take-backs, it occurred to Sandro and Anastasia both that his family would be understandably worried if he went absent during a _hurricane_. Anastasia kept absolutely silent, lest his mom overhear voices and realize he was around other people.

Joker inspected his daughter's tight posture, and realized the jist of the situation. After a moment, he was slightly flattered to realize _he_ had been the first parent informed of this new friendship. That meant he'd done a good job as a father, right? _Right_? He thought maybe Ana ought to get a single cookie for that. _Just one, of course_.

"No, no, hey, I'm fine mom...!" Sandro protested. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just got caught out is all-" he was cut off and listened for a moment "-no, I'm okay. I climbed up topside, but obviously it's deserted up here. I'm _completely safe_." He dropped his voice, "and kinda enjoying the unusual situation." The volume on the other side escalated and he cringed. "Mom, I just wanted to-!" Wince, wince, wince. "Yeah, dangerous, right." He was yelled at for that, and grimaced. "I'm _fine_ , mom. I'm a turtle. I'm not going to die from being a little damp, believe me." Another pause. "Where am I? Oh-"

Sandro blinked rapidly, trying to decide what coordinates to give her as he sifted through a mental map of the sewers, above ground, and the places he and Anastasia used most often. Ana thought to offer a suggestion, but then realized she didn't know what sewers would get blocked sooner than others. "-I'm on Theremond Road, by the wharf," he said at last, reluctantly. "I wanted to see how big the waves got. Mom, _come on_ , I'm literally in zero danger, _please calm down_." Pause. "Mom, for God's sake, _I am a turtle_. If I, by some tragic and miraculous turn of events, manage to get washed out into the Hudson, despite the considerable wave breakers and other public safety measures in place, I will _hold my breath and swim home_. Because I am a turtle and can actually do that."

Mom didn't yell at that, which probably meant she was calming down and accepting the fact that Sandro wasn't in any danger. But she said something that made Sandro cringe harder and start to pace. "No- Mom! You don't have to pick me up. Really. I'm fine. I can get back on my own and I'm under a shelter. Mom! Mom, come on, the roads aren't safe, have you seen it out there? There's no _lights_!" Pause. "For God's sake mom, I'm-" He gave a heavy sigh. "Mom... Okay... Fine." Pause. "Yeah. See you soon." Pause. "Love you too, Mom."

He swiped to end the call, and looked guilty to Anastasia and Mr. Hamilton. "I've gotta beat her to the wharf."

The Joker put his hands on his hips.

Anastasia piped up, uncertainty, with what needed to be said: "You could call her back. She could pick you up here."

Sandro reached for his duffel bag, and then headed for his coat. "Maybe I do need to start telling them _something_ , but I am not leading any of my family members _here_ ," he said. There it was, the subtle, discrete, implicit promise: That Sandro knew and accepted that Anastasia and her father needed a buffer of secrecy, and didn't need to know exactly why. "Cause the last thing I want to hear tomorrow is you calling me from Portland Oregon."

Sandro paused at the door and then turned to look at her father with a tentative mix of uncertainty, apology, and hope. The Joker eyed him up and down before leaning back and crossing his arms and just nodding quietly.

Anastasia jumped out of her chair to join him. "I'm getting you to the wharf."

"What! Wild, there's a severe hurricane outside and _I'm_ not the one likely to get blown over."

"And you aren't used to being above the ground at night, much less in high winds!" she snarled, but then her face lit up. "Plus it'll be fun as _hell_ getting blown about out there. I really do want to roof jump with it at my back." She turned and beamed innocently at her dad as she got both boots on and wrapped them about the knees and then pulled her jacket on over it.

"Come back straight after," Mr. Hamilton said warily, after a moment. He didn't usually give her orders at night, but-

Anastasia gave a thumbs-up of agreement. "Got it! If I go missing, check the river! It's apparently the first place parents presume their missing offspring will end up! I can almost imagine dozens of them out there with flashlights after the storm, looking for curfew-breakers who ended up staying at a friend's house. Or a pub. Or at an unknown girlfriend's! Te~he~!"


	17. Popular With the Ladies

Sandro and Wildcard were trying to cut through the city as efficiently as possible at a sharp angle, while avoiding the brunt of the weather. They had flashlights out to combat the pitch blackness, and were somewhat reliant on Wildcard to anticipate the terrain ahead of them.

"This wind is _amazing_!" she laughed, even as the element in question tried to steal her voice.

"Can't believe you're keeping up, much less _in the lead,"_ he called begrudgingly up to her.

Wildcard and Sandro had done their share of night runs together, enough for her to know what kinds of advantages his strength usually gave to him. It took one hell of a lot of force to clear the sort of jumps which Sandro could make, and he always landed and rolled back to his feet with a powerful momentum and well-controlled sturdiness that she admired.

From what practice she'd gotten tripping or flipping him during their spars, she knew Sandro was _heavy_ to boot. For example: There were many forms of terrain _she_ could cross that he could not, such as gutters and glass and wall pipes, because too much weight would simply break them. But now, all that weight, grace, and strength kept the hurricane for being able to push him very far. He could hurtle, jump, and drop straight through the slashing winds with just minor intuitive corrections, and Wildcard had to double-think and recalculate _everything_.

Still, she was ahead. "I love this game!" She laughed, but then skid to a halt at the edge of the plaza and reached out frantically to still him. He brought himself to an abrupt stop, and then a fully airborne section of chain-link fence went flying across the space in front of them, ragged metal splayed out in all directions.

" _Shell_!" What a fantastic fake curse-word. She grinned fiercely at Sandro, eyes knowing. "Glad you're here!" he admitted, voice nearly stolen in the weather.

"Let's cross at ground level, buildings are making a wind tunnel," she shouted to him.

Even at ground level, she literally skid and slipped against the earth, and Sandro reached out and grabbed her to help shield her as they powered through the storm.

"Gonna be lots of property damage come morning," she ribbed.

"You gonna make it back fine after this?!" he asked over the roar of water as they neared their target.

"Yeah, I'll take it slow!" she shouted back.

He could clear jumps and reach ledges that she had to make a wall-run to reach. Unfair! But the first time he gave her a boost from behind, she wondered how the two of them might tag-team in a real fight. The difference in height, weight, and strength might give them an interesting acrobatic dynamic.

But then they'd arrived.

"Down that way!" she skid and called with a wave down to the path he ought to take. He made the drop in several steep slides and jumps that clearly caused him no discomfort whatsoever. She doubled back, hesitated, turned, clambered out on a crane neck, and squinted at the rooftop below.

* * *

As he mad his way down onto the roof of the run-down shipping facility around which he'd agreed to meet his mother, Sandro was pretty sure he couldn't make out the shape of a car in either direction. He took a deep breath amidst the sharp angular waterfalls of rain, and came up to the edge of the building to kneel and peer over it. _Twenty minutes_ , his mother had told him, and he'd needed to hope she'd underestimated in her distress... _Ah_. No cars lingered below. _Made it in time_. Now he just needed a way down into the alley. _Easy._

"Ho-ho-!" a jovial voice crested through he storm, and he went ram-rod straight in horror. "Lil bro, you're in _so much trouble...!_ " Michelangelo crooned playfully, and Sandro turned with as his uncle jumped down through parting rain to splash down on the roof beside him.

"Look, I just got caught out when the storm came in, that's all-" Sandro began, but his uncle gave him a knowing and playful shove.

"Someone's lying!" Mikey laughed. "You got some kind of secret, little bro? Don't want anyone to know what you've been up to? Spill the beans, yo! Commmee onn...!"

Mikey had a way of walking about a person that almost _herded_ them, which was intimidating (whether Mikey intended it to be or not) simply because of how much bigger he was than Sandro. Mikey was taller than _everyone_ but his own brothers. Sandro growled back, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh-ho, someone thinks they're all my~ _ster_ ~i~ous!" Michaelangel joshed him, "But guess who's already been here ten minutes, waitin for you? That's right. _Moi_." He gestured to himself with both hands.

 _Shit_ _._ "Mom said she was coming to pick me up." _Not any of you...!_

"That's right, but then Donnie told her I was nearby and they sent me instead. Uh-oh! _Busted_. Not to mention... Donster's been gettin suspicious anyway; Told me you've sneaking out or in at weird hours. Sound familiar, lil bro? Cause, gee, someone hasn't been askin me to go out on patrol with me for like, months. Weird, ain't it? I know!"

Sandro grit his teeth.

"Oh look whose all outed and speechless! Ha! Tell me what's up!"

"What do you want, Mikey?" Sandro growled almost inaudibly through the storm. "Is this a 'I have to scrub the showers for a month' thing or-"

"Na-ah! You aren't getting out of this one by taking my chores, lil bro! Nuh-uh, not this time! You're coming clean. I mean not like I wanna be a jerk or anything, but more like Donnie knows something's up now, too, and he'll guess I'm coverin for you."

Sandro tightened his fists and ground his beak together.

"C'moonn, tell me what's got your undies all in a knottt...! You been comin' topside more than once, haven't you? Where you been goin?"

If Michelangelo was asking him to divulge the truth _now_ , in the pouring rain, then he might still be open to bargaining. If he _only_ knew Sandro had snuck topside 'a few times' then that would probably be okay. Donatello could find out, too, and Sandro would still survive. The trick was getting them to agree not to tell his parents. But Sandro had a limited amount of time to decide what his story was, and—unfortunately—he didn't have Wild's gift for storytelling.

"Look..." Sandro muttered slowly, guiltily, drawing out the word to buy precious seconds with which to think. "You know I hate it down there. I just... I've just wanted to..."

No, fuck, this wasn't going to be good enough. 'I just randomly decided to start wandering around at night without motive or goal a few times' was not going to get anyone to forgive him. But even if they didn't forgive him, it still might be... believable? If it was _believable_ , Donatello and Michelangelo _still_ might cover for him. They'd ground him, though. That was a sure thing. And they'd keep an eye over him after that, which meant he wouldn't get to sneak out so easily...

 _Think, think...!_

Something interesting interrupted his train of thought: the wind slacked off. He looked up in surprise to see the clouds cracking open above him, as a wall of rain flew past them like a curtain. The sky above them was almost _bright_ , and Sandro straightened as he realized the _stars_ were all visible. "Wow..." he couldn't help but murmur.

"Whoa, yeah! Eye of the _Storm_ , lil bro! And no light pollution to boot!" Michelangelo laughed at his amazed expression despite sharing it, and straightened slightly now that there wasn't a heavy current of rain pouring down from above. "But hey, you ain't getting out of trouble that easy! You gonna tell me what you been up to or not? Cause I'm sure-"

" _Saaandrro!_ " called a shrill female voice from above, and both turtles nearly leaped out of their skin.

Sandro's eyes flew open wide. _No. Oh no_. But Michelangelo was already looking up, and Sandro looked slowly up, too. There, quite high and almost directly above them, was Wildcard. She was still jacketed in yellow with her hood pull low, and now sitting side-saddle on a nose of a crane. She'd cupped her hands to her face, so she could shout louder.

"Teell your uncle he's hooottt!" she called helpfully down to him. "And needs to put a shiiirt on before he blinds the ladddiess!"

Both turtles were dead silent for the longest moment.

"I'm gonna kill 'er," Sandro assessed quietly.

Michelangelo looked down at him, mouth agape, eyes wide. Then he pointed upward. "That is a girl," he announced factually.

"She's dead." Sandro spat, looking around for the fastest way up to the crane, "Gender notwithstanding, when I get my hands on her, she's _dead!_ " He turned and ran towards a fire escape that would help him reach the next roof.

"Tell them if they invite me over I'll bring free pizzzaa!" hollered a maniac.

"GONNA BE HARD AFTER I KILL YA!" he shouted back much louder than her (for once in their whole lives!)

Wildcard laughed like a maniac, squealed something lost to the sky that probably amounted to 'Payback's a bitttcch!' and looped herself back up to her feet atop the crane to go bolting back the way she'd came. Michelangelo could scale the wall faster than Sandro could, and Sandro knew it, and the last thing he wanted was for any member of his family to get to Wildcard before _he_ could, so he _had_ to get there first even as he knew it was impossible.

" _YOU'RE DEAD, WILD_!" His fury was equal parts agony.

But Sandro's attempts to climb up to her level were thwarted: Suddenly Michelangelo grabbed him from behind, and hauled him (flailing) back down to the rooftop they'd met on.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hey, no, _hey_ , c'mon!" Mikey hissed unexpectedly, stifling Sandro's angry (and panicked) shouts with a hand. The younger turtle honestly contemplated biting him.

 _Why!?_ Sandro looked frantically from side to side, but there appeared no indication that any of the other three older turtles were present. Just Mikey. Mikey, who was keeping _him_ firmly locked down where he was standing, and who was not chasing after Wildcard or trying to get her down off the crane. Did that mean none of them could tail her home? That's exactly what it meant: No one would be tailing her home. No one was going to catch her. She was as safe as she'd ever been, provided she threw out that stupid bright yellow jacket.

Sandro was shaking. Why was he _shaking_? But he was: trembling in every limb. _Don't take her away; Don't chase her away; Don't move her away._

He needed to stuff all this anger down someplace and swallow it whole; and when he'd done so, Sandro managed to take a couple deep breaths. He slumped defeatedly in his uncle's hold, trying to figure out why Michelangelo had specifically chosen to _restrain him._ Whatever the reason, his limp compliance resulted in his uncle slowly releasing him, and he turned about to face his elder (or, more accurately, to stare at Michelangelo's knees).

"C'mon, we need to get off the roof now. _C'mon_."

The eye of the storm ended, and another curtain of rain swept past to drown them again.

* * *

They were a solid mile away and fifteen feet underground before Michelangelo spoke to him again, in part because it was so hard to hear anything over the Hurricane. And, surprisingly, the first question was not so terrible:

"Okay—so, like—I have to ask because it's like protocol and all (so don't freak out or anything) but like: Is the funny, tiny chick with the Foot?" Michelangelo asked. "Or the Dragons or Panthers or...?"

"She's not with _anyone_." And that he could be truly honest about. "She's just a kid like me."

"Okay, but... like... are you _just_ sure. _.._ or are you _totally_ —like— _sure-sure_?" Michelangelo was trying to visualize.

"I'm _all_ the sures with a side of sure dressing," Sandro muttered hoarsely. At least goofing around with Wildcard had been improving the quality of his banter. "She just moved here."

A pause. "Man I knew you'd be popular with the ladies. You've got _my_ moves!"

Sandro cringed before Mikey even got about to elbowing him. "I don't even like girls! ... _yet!_ " he belatedly added, because it wasn't like he liked anything else, either.

"Ha! _Suuuree!_ But seriously, lil bro, you are like dead. _So_ dead. What were you thinking? What _was_ that? Okay, never mind, stupid question, that was Le Tiny Chick, and Le Tiny Chick was crazy adorablez. With a 'z' at the end and everything, seriously. But I mean we can't be seen by people, you can't—like— _do_ that. If she takes pictures, tells anyone... well _you_ know!" His face screwed up in concern, and it seemed the likely fallout was weighing in on him at the same time as they were weighing on Sandro. "You can't just go topside running around with _strangers_ , lil bro, and when everyone hears they're gonna fliiip...!"

Sandro stopped walking, and Michelangelo turned to him with a worried expression, as if he was uncertain whether to continue joking or try his hand at serious lecturing (the latter wasn't really within his basic skill set). Standing there before his most understanding uncle, completely helpless, the only thing Sandro could think of _to_ do was to pull out his cell phone, open the contacts list, and extend the phone meekly up to his uncle.

Nestled there, alongside a list of numbers otherwise limited to just family members, was the entry for 'Free Pizza,' now highlighted by Wildcard's ballsy shouts. If there was anyone in his whole family who could _possibly_ appreciate the existence of a maniac who shouted things about peoples' shirts from cranes in the middle of a hurricane, it _might_ be Mikey.

Michelangelo slowly took the phone from him. Sandro didn't look up or face him. The older turtle tapped on 'Free Pizza' to pull up the conversation history, and then thumbed through Wildcard's ridiculous (but often school-centric) messages, complete with math problems, word requests, pictures of throwing stars, random observations about the universe, and a long, long, long list of 'pings' and call notifications.

Mikey was being quiet. _Quiet_. That was so bizarre it couldn't come off as anything other than ominous.

"We were just out _playing._ _Honestly_." Sandro spoke only because he could bear the silence no longer. Mikey didn't immediately say anything, though Sandro felt the orange turtle turn back to stare at him. "Please don't tell anyone. Please just ground me. _Please_."

Michelangelo continued to be quiet for a moment.

"Okay Sandro, look, this is real important and you need to answer me honestly..." A dramatic pause stretched between them, and then Mikey turned the phone around and pointed at the picture on it. "Does your girlfriend seriously have an _actual_ batarang? Because that is like... just _freaking awesome, man_..."


	18. Jigsaw

It was slightly difficult to find her own house, if only because she'd never been charged with finding the building in pitch blackness during a massive windstorm before. Without large buildings about, there was less to block the wind and also less to channel it into dangerous horizontal vortexes. Lightning flashed overhead, and she spotted the A-Frame and hurried towards it, mindful of dislodged trees.

Ugh. She was just _pouring_ with water, heh. It was rolling off of her almost worse than if she'd just stepped out of a river. She pressed her key into the door, and unlocked it.

A heavy, wet thud behind her gave her the scare of her life, and she twisted about against the door only to breathe a sign of relief. Her father had also been outside, and had just joined her by jumping down from the roof. He was in his dark black rain-jacket, and hooded almost as severely as Sandro. She grinned... or she almost grinned, because when he moved, everything about his body language was violently wrong. He stepped forward like a tiger, and threw the door open with an angry thrust of a palm.

"In _side_!" her father shouted (when did her father ever shout?), and gave a sharp shove at her back to bodily force her compliance. Wildcard stumbled inward, confused, and turned about to face him. He stepped in, sloughing water, and slammed the door hard behind him even against the resistance of the wind.

"Dad, what's wrong?" she whispered into the comparative quiet, in the patters of dripping run-off upon the floor.

"Why?" he demanded, his voice biting and hard; enunciated, curling, and sharp. "Why would you do that? What is _wrong_ with you?" He took another step into the room, and she backed up one to match, shaking her head unknowingly. "Why would you _do_ that, why would you _risk_ that, why would you _expose_ yourself?" His volume raised with each rebuke.

"D-dad, it's fine-" she tried to interject; she'd never seen him do this.

"Nothing is 'fine'!" he roared. "You still think you can get away with this!? You conducted today like a circus, as if _I_ wouldn't notice how manipulative you were being when _I_ taught you everything you know! And after all that you still couldn't _resist_ showing off!"

Each of his footfalls made her flinch, to the point where she scarcely knew how he was pacing violently back and forward, a caged predator. "I just wanted to make him tell the-!"

"-the _t_ _ruth!?_ Is there an ounce of sense in your _fucking_ head!? You are _in hiding_!" her father screamed, stamped forward, throwing his arms out, blocking out all space. "Arrogant child; Fucking stupid _child;_ you walk a tightrope and I teach you everything you need to know, and you spit on it and _cut_ the rope _yourself_!"

Her father had sworn many times in her life, but never at her, and it upset her in ways she did not know she could be upset. "I'm not afraid of his fam-!"

"You. Are. **Stupid**! And _fearless_ when you have no right to be! You think you are a hero!? A potential hero!? You are _nothing_! You are a reckless, idiotic, asinine _child_! Do you think this 'successful' daredevilry proves you are immortal!? Do you think because you get away with these _brainless_ antics once, twice, even three times; you are anything more than a toddler with a knife!?"

There were tears threatening, if not already spilling. "I'm tougher and faster and smarter than-" A knife went whistling past her face, so fast she didn't even see it coming, and she flinched.

"-than _who_!? His parents!? _Ha!_ Ha-ha-ho-ho-he-he. Yeah, right. Oh! _Your_ parents?! I should hope so, because their entrails ended up architectural decorations by the time I was done with them, and now you blatantly expose us to the risk that the same people who found them are going to _find you_ , and the only _fucking thing_ protecting you is the fact that _no one_ knows you or I are alive! The one thing—the only thing!—that might get you past eighteen is that _you don't exist_!"

"... _dad..._ " she squeaked.

"What is it going to take to drill that into your head!?" he shouted, "You can't leave a trail! You can't be _sloppy_ and _reckless_ and _moronic_! What do I have to do!? Do I have to scare you!?" He advanced on her, and she backed and shook her head slowly in horror and never took her eyes from him. "Is that what you want to be!? Scared of me!? Do you want me to run knives against your face, tell you stories, play 'Jigsaw' with the next burglar that breaks in, kidnap some bystanders and leave them in niblets like your stupid rabbit!? Is that what it's going to take—" he unsheathed a long and heavy switchblade with a violent, loud snap as he approached "—is that what I have to do to get you to listen!?

As she backed into the couch, a shudder ran across her that strangled every nerve, and she screamed: "DAD!"

The fact that he'd been just about to pounce on her was belied by how he recoiled: not like he'd been struck or stopped, but like a cobra entertaining how to strike.

Wildcard staggered forward to him, away from that couch and from that position of helplessness where his shrieking fury had pinned her. She reached swiftly up for him. He snatched one of her arms out of the air by the wrist, but did not lift the knife; so her free hand reached his face through the hood. His skin was slick with water from the rain, slick with fresh greasepaint as her palm smeared up over his lower lip and scar and cheek. She didn't even have to curl her nails into it to obtain evidence because it hadn't dried yet: when she pulled her fingers back, they came away white and red and black.

Emotion overcame her, blocking her throat. She lunged into him, stuffing her hand back up into the hood, and behind his neck, where green hair was still wet with spray-paint, and she hugged her father. She struggled against the painfully tight grip he had against his arm. Worm, worm, writhe: she got the hand free, and his fingers closed numbly around where her wrist had been and did not move, and she threw that arm about his back.

After a long moment, a long, scratchy, inquisitive tenor trickled out beside her ear: "Well this is different."

She choked out half a laugh, half a sob. "Yeah? And where have _you_ been?" she whispered teasingly, trembling, barely knowing what she was saying even as she said it: "I haven't seen you in _forever_. I thought you might have _died_."

He tilted his head slightly at that. Wildcard felt his jaw move as he licked his lower lip and the edge of a scar. He hummed reedily, curiously, "Nmm... what are you doing, squirt...?"

She shuddered and answered into the muffle of his clothes: "You're _my_ dad, Joker. Hasn't been a day of my whole life I haven't known what your 'i'm scared; please hug me' looks like."

Silence drifted about her. The hurricane was audible again. The unsheathed knife hit the ground with a heavy thud, impaling the woodwork. Whatever she'd said, somehow it _broke_ him. His posture sagged backwards from her and she clung to him: so much taller, so much stronger, so much more ancient and primal, like a demon. A breath passed. He stepped into her, and arms closed firmly, warm, against her back and shoulders. He crushed her to him. He smothered his face into the side of her own, into her temple and hair, getting paint everywhere. He clawed into the hair at the back of her neck, and then slowly started to laugh.

Except it wasn't really laughter, because he was crying. Not the 'happy' kind of crying, either; he cried in the way she hadn't seen him cry since she was little, since back when he was coping with her first years of elementary school. Like she'd forgotten he _could_ cry: he clung to her, and sobbed into her, and _needed_ her, because whatever cocktail of endorphins he felt when he hugged her, it was his only drug of choice. He apologized without speaking, in the way he chafed through her hair, in the way he held onto her.

"I-it's..." she sputtered, not knowing what to say. She pet through his green-soaked hair, "It's okay dad... I'm safe, you have me, and I'm sorry... I'm sorry, _for real_ , okay? I'm sorry, and everything's still okay..."

His not-laughs petered out, slowly, with scatterings of not-giggles as his fingers pet hair from her face and wondrously traced her cheek and begged forgiveness. He breathed heavily, and then asked in that same high, soft voice: "But will it be?"

"How can _I_ know that?" she demanded, sniffling, swallowing hard past lumps. "I'm not a fortune teller. That's the exciting part, right? _Not_ knowing the future?"

He hissed as if startled and then _busted_ out laughing again (shrill and harsh), and laughed and laughed and laughed, and gently twisted back and forth as if rocking her. She slumped into him, and now he kept her upright. "I'm sorry," he sputtered, wheezed, cried, giggled; bundled her to him, voice still airy, "I'm sorry... I'm _sorry_..."

* * *

[Author's Note]

*Cough*

*Crickets*

Are you still here?

Okay, Disclaimer time: This is a _story_. If _you_ have a relative that explodes on you, whether violently or simply verbally, get help to deal with the emotional fallout and get that relative help so you two can stabilize/heal the relationship. *Especially* if they're in a position of power over you, ie: parent, teacher, spouse, sibling, etc. This chapter demonstrated _severe_ codependency issues between a parent/child, which is not healthy. (Notice I didn't say 'doomed' just 'not healthy') Most of the rest of us aren't retired super-villains, and can and should get therapy easier than Joker can.

For an insane clown he's being _valiantly_ emotionally stable 99% of the time. However his own mental fragility is still the reason his daughter has 'prematurely grown up.' Interactions like these, however _beautiful_ they turn out, will have other psychological repercussions on her down the line, and she's going to need some help somehow from someone else.

All that said, still I kinda want to give both characters a pat on the back for all the luv oozing about this chapter, cause there sure is oodles and oodles of love, even if there's problems, and ya know I have high hopes.


	19. Time Out

" _That_ is not a good look for you," the Joker murmured in a reedy drawl. He leaned over her at the kitchen table, soapy sponge in hand, and gently dabbed away the paint he'd smeared on her. "There we go, there we go." He lifted his chin to get her to lift her own. As he 'concentrated,' he ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip.

Joker hadn't come down off his high, or else he'd simply come down _wrong_ ; but either way Wildcard still knew her father by his bemusing priorities, acid eyes, and gentle doting. His body language was very different, though: twitchy and fluttery in ways, solid and heavy in others. His hood was down, and she watched his face.

When she was little, she'd been scared of seeing him like this or, more specifically, of _hearing_ him like this. These behavioral patterns had been _different_ , and she'd never known what they had meant, exactly, and furthermore they'd only ever come out when things were dangerous or bad or suddenly changing. Her father had hid them from her, she now realized, so she'd only seen them when he was stressed to the point that they came out.

So was it any wonder that Marcy Adams and Veronica Peterson and all the other Baby-Buttercups had quite naturally assumed a higher speaking voice or obsessive compulsive worrying at the facial scars (inside and out) was _bad?_

But the person hovering above her, tickling her slightly as he squeegeed paint out of her ear and hair, was indisputably Wildcard's _father_. The little smiles that curled at his lips as he worked, as his mind flit through a thousand things, were undecided and twitchy, but they were her father's smiles. "Here," he reached gently for her. "Give me your hands, or you'll just go and smudge yourself again. Annnhd," he tagged on as he took her fingers in his hand and wrapped the sponge about each, "by the way... don't let me get _a-_ way with that."

 _Away with..._ "With how you acted?" she asked slowly. He made a lot of mouth sounds as he talked, and hummed and purred like a crow.

He gave a sure nod. "That was..." he flashed a smirk up to her, and hummed on the 'ns' and popped the harder consonants: "...u _n_ ac _cept_ a _b_ le." He was worrying those scars from within as surely as if he was chewing on gum. She wanted to reach up and place a hand against his face to make him aware of it, but that would just get her fingers slicked in white and red again.

"I think that's on _you_ , dad," she finally thought up her answer, smiling lightly, curiously up at him; tired and relieved. "I've got no means of punishing you, or even thwarting you from doing it again." His eyelids lowered and his mouth pressed together, motionless. He finished de-painting her hands, and then leaned further of the table, one hand flat against it, and reached up to push curls out of heir face and to run his fingertips over her cheek.

"I know that. But it was wrong of me." Her father's regular low base tone didn't come back, even while being so earnest; Joker's voice stayed charged, whispered, crooning. "'Mnnn not sure how to _do_ an 'I'm sorry' when the goal is to _not do_ something. I'm really more of a 'doer' than a 'talker' and saying the same thing more than twenty times seems pointless." He considered that. "Twenty-one times. I'm sorry." His hand cradled her cheek with the curve of his thumb.

Wildcard watched him, watched his face, and then slowly slid her elbows down on the table, and laid her head down on the cross of her arms. "You scared the shit out of me," she told him honestly. His hand recoiled, and she snickered. "I... I'm growing up. Life is changing and I'm..." she looked back up at him, grinning mischievously, "...going to make lots of mistakes and bad decisions." His fingertips returned to comb a stray curl back out of her eyes. "But I'm sorry. I'm really sorry I pushed you so hard. I'm sorry I broke your rules, when I know they're only there for my sake." He pet her. "Um, Sandro called me 'Crazy Little Clown.' Did you hear?"

"Mn-hmm. And 'Loudmouth,' which seems to be his preferred epitaph for you." His voice was amazing to listen to: the wry delight was soft, nasal and childish. Wildcard giggled conspiratorially into her arms. "Nnmmm I heard him call you sommmething else," the Joker mused aloud. "Something like a name. He was almost awkward calling you 'Ana.'" _So many pops and hums and mouth sounds._

"I named myself," she told him, looking up from her arms. "I didn't have a real name, and I wanted one, so I named myself after you."

"Oh?" He docked his head to the side, watching her in wide-eyed curiousity through the candle-light. The accentuated red glasgow was somehow natural on him; perhaps because she was so used to seeing the scars.

"I named myself _Wildcard_."

" _Ooh_." He straightened just an inch, thinking. "That's _clever_. Completely opaque and ironically crystal clear. You know," he lowered his chin and smirked deviously, "I've actually been making something for you and I've needed an idea for "branding" it." He did air-quotes. "It's not done yet, but would you like to see?"

She straightened. "I don't think this is an appropriate time to give me presents, seeing as you and I are both technically in some kind of time-out."

"Well you can't have it _yet_ ," he trilled like a coy raven, and turned to go rummage through a cabinet. (Words, so many words she'd asked Sandro about _sounds_ and voices, and not explained why.) "Besides it's relevant, highly relevant!"

He pulled out a bundle of alternately stiff and reinforced fabric, and with an excited gusto he laid it out on the kitchen table and unfolded it. Wildcard straightened up, touching black fabric that felt as smooth as silk but seemed like something more.

"I've had to gather a number of, um, very specific materials," he explained with more worrying at the scar on his left ( the one that hadn't healed into a smile line, the one that looked like the stitches had become infected while it was mending).

"What is it?" As her fingers found the ceramic-plated chassis around the chest, she realized she probably knew.

"An outfit for you," he explained. "While you're out and about. Your old stuff's a little small on you, a little shoddy, a little _slapdash;_ I thought I'd start needling together an upgrade. Only I've had to wait and nick bits and pieces quietly from here and there. The outer fabric won't tear for anything, effectively making it 'stab proof.' Course you can still take a puncture wound if you're hit hard enough. That's why the armor around the chest. Need to find a balance elsewhere between carbon fiber plates and, ya know, elasticity and flexibility."

"It's lighter than my current stuff," she said with curiousity and excitement as she fingered and pinched at the armor. The thread-work was all in white for some reason.

"Ayup. And it'll stop more, too. Costs a small fortune."

"This is _so cool_...!" She quirked a brow at him. "What were you saying about 'branding'?"

"I wanted to put something on it," he explained. "Something in white. An, ehm, logo of sorts."

Her eyes widened and she looked down from the outfit and then up to him. "You've been making me a super hero costume?"

"Well..." he drawled, pleased with himself. "One side of the fence or another. I promise not to mind either way. Anyway, I was testing out designs-"

"-how does one test out a _design_?" she interrupted, confused.

"So! There's this _booming_ little silkscreen company that runs out of New York," he turned to her with his hands curled in gesticulation, "and it has this website and this program where you can make up T-shirt and hoodie designs and sell them. They do the work, you get a small royalty. But! If people buy enough of a shirt you've designed, the company actually puts your stuff into the stores. And guess whose shirts the kiddies just love?" He leaned back and seemed to find that sort of hilarious.

Wildcard squinted, startled by this interesting and unexpected side-venture he'd been dabbling in. "That's my dad, setting fashion trends for the future."

He burst out laughing. "The purple tux never did catch on..."

"Aw, see, but that's _your_ thing. You've always been the artistic one, dad." He lifted his brows at this praise, and she laughed. "It's true! So let me get this straight: You are going to design logos for me, wait to see if one gets explosively popular, and then brand my super hero costume with it to make it look like the logo came first and I just took it as my own later on?"

The Joker stuck out his tongue a little between his teeth as he grinned. "Well. I thought it might be fun if I could brand a few hoodies for you as well. One should always be free to feel _themmmselves_ , no?" He tapped the armor and leaned over to explain conversationally: "Though lemme tell ya, squirt, you ever want quality, you gotta know it's more than just waving handfuls of _moolah_ in the air," he rubbed his fingers together at 'moolah,' and then flattened his palm. "You gotta know _how_ to buy. And Bats is good for that, sources his mats with an _enviable_ finesse."

"You steal from Wayne Enterprises?" she realized, while still trying to decide if he sounded more like a _crow_ or rather a permanently growling-and-purring cat of some kind. What large-ish cats purred? Cougars?

"Oh he _rarely_ orders the good stuff through 'Wayne Enterprises,'" Joker winked as he sat back. "But same basic premise. And he always orders surplus and plans a margin of error for people skinning free samples off the top. I just make sure _I_ get those samples, if I want them."

Wildcard studied him. "The amount of information you just _know_ about people is amazing. Like, sometimes I have brain farts realizing _just how much_ you see going on, everywhere, all the time." She raised a brow thoughtfully as a serious question occurred to her: "Have you figured out who my Aikkido instructor is? Jane?"

"Her name is Mary-Jane Parker," the Joker drawled. "She's your childhood hero's _squeeze_."

"My childhood-?" Wildcard's eyes flew open wide. "Spider-Man? _Spider-Man_ has a girlfriend?!"

Joker snickered. "Wife, if the last name is any indicator. And either Peter Parker managed to reproduce—amazing, I know—or else some other poor sod got bitten by a radioactive spider, because word's stirring there's a little Spiderling occasionally sneaking out where it oughtn't."

"Oh my _god_ ," Wildcard muttered, slumping back in her chair. "My brain. Spider-Man is slowly getting _old_. Everyone has names. Sometimes they have girlfriends, and get married and have children. Paf!" She mimed her head exploding. "You're _behind_ old clown!"

Joker bust out laughing and then grinned playfully and sat forward. He picked up a cookie and split in half. "Here. Since we're both equally in time-out." He extended half to her. "We can share the punishment."

"I don't think this is a punishment." She took the cookie, though, and ate it before he could change his mind. "Mmmph. Your _cooking_ , dad. You need to start a restaurant to go with your new fashion design brand."

" _Thanks_ , squirt... I know you say it all the time but..." He shrugged faintly and looked down, murmuring, "it always meant something to me you liked my cooking."

"Dad your cooking is legendary." She reached over to split another cookie with him, deciding she had enough energy for one more conversation that evening. "Hey. Um. Depressing topic change for a second. Humor me? You... you said something about my birth parents while you were screaming at me earlier."

Acid eyes flicked up to her, and his fidgeting stilled.

She put his half of the cookie into his hand, and kept her gaze down. "I don't need to know. I know the reason you won't tell me is because you don't like having done it, and think I ought to hate you. And yeah, sometimes, I wonder about where I came from, but making up the story myself seems almost appropriate, so if you never work up the courage to tell me, I still forgive you. Anyway, I wager half the reason we hide is because people would institutionalize _you_ and take _me_ away. But the other half is because someone was after me once, and if that person is so good at this game that you fear them to this day, I wish I knew their name so I could hide from even a whisper of them."

Joker turned his cookie slowly upside down. "Hrmm... Let's put the answer to that at 'anyone with money' for now."

"Except Batman?" she wondered.

He smirked and chewed the inside of his cheek. "Let me ask you a question, squirt," he segued, his voice still in that soft and childish burr, "you ever wonder why you can't sense future reflections from me?"

She looked up to him, and nodded. "Yeah." Though they'd rarely ever discussed her gift.

"It's because I won a game of lots. Intentionally, _ironically,_ and only because so many other people wanted it and _I_ just wanted to steal it so I could laugh at them when they _lost_." He kept rotating the cookie. "So now, there's a psychic bridge built between you and I. Your brain was rerouted to shunt some of your ability over to me. So when a future directly pertains to or stems from myself, _I_ can see it, and you _can't_."

Wildcard leaned back and furrowed her brows at him, confused. "You can see the future the same as I can? How..." she raised her hands to indicate complete bafflement, " _How_ has this never come up before now!?"

"Nh... Well," he took a bite of his cookie, "considering my reaction to the bridge was to go stark raving mad and end up muzzled in a straitjacket, let's just say I had some very nice appreciation for how frustrating a 'talent' it was for you to live with on a daily basis. And I didn't really want to talk about it."

She frowned thoughtfully, trying to stitch this story together from the pieces he'd already given her. "At... what point did I end up in your custody after that?"

"When the building was on fire. And collapsing. From the ballistic missile explosion. Which was how _I_ got free. I felt you dying from smoke inhalation in the lab room where they were keeping you, and realized your _entire gift_ had a very real chance of escaping into _my_ head if you kicked the bucket. Which is creepy even in retrospect; how is that even possible? Anyway, that was the very last thing I wanted to have happen, so I found you, and I resuscitated you instead of—ya know—the _opposite,_ and took you." He finished his cookie and dusted off his hands. "Not a very heroic motivator, I know."

Wildcard actually blurted a laugh. "Well I already knew it couldn't have been _heroic._ "

Joker had clearly expected her to be distressed, and when she wasn't, it actually seemed to hit him much harder. He cringed a little, even in the full mantle of the Clown Prince, and twisted back to stare at her. "Ehm..." Not that she was entirely perfectly put together, either, after all he'd yelled at her, but jovial curiousity tended to leave little room for twisting insecurity.

"Did you think I'd be mad?" she wondered aloud, and then explained her reasoning: "If the media is consistent about anything in its depiction of 'The Joker' it was that he sort of incorruptible, in his own way. Not someone who felt shame or... randomly adopted babies. But you did, and you're not really the same person, now." True on multiple levels, that. "And I never assumed the transition could have been the result of one singular tug of the heart strings. The way you described it, it sounded like a slow series of successive choices in weird circumstances."

Joker stared at her, incredulous, painted mouth slightly ajar. "And that doesn't nhh, ya know, bother you?" Perhaps it did. But if anything gave her courage, it was seeing that she still had the ability flummox people by being flippantly matter-of-fact when they were stressed!

"Honestly, its kinda flattering to think that my ability to produce an infinite stack of dirty diapers was somehow a motivator for a mass-murdering evil clown to decide to settle down and go 'you know, I like this, I think I'm going to be an amoral _dad_ clown now. Yeah. That sounds like what I want to do. Nyah-nyah you other villain guys, this is my shtick now, and it's so much cooler than yours! He~hE~He~hE~He!'" (He was privately wowed by her ability to mimic his laugh, despite how rarely she'd heard the real thing.) "Just sayin. Wouldn't have topped my list of things I assumed could happen." (God, she had all of his body language. All of it.)

"You know," The Joker leaned over the table, "you have a tremendous ability... to leave me feeling like I have no control of a situation," he informed her, licking his lips and squinting. "Which is... _weird_. Don't you think? Cause, like, that's usually _my_ thing that I do to _other_ people..."

Wildcard grinned delightedly from ear to ear, and leaned forward till their noses nearly touched. " _You_ raised me, Old Clown. Whose fault am I but yours, hmm?"

He held her stare very seriously and then tapped her nose. "Boop."

Silence.

Wildcard broke, collapsing onto the table with howls of laughter. The evening had been long, and stressful, and freaky, and filled with information, and _Boop_ had been an insurmountable finisher.

Joker leaned back with a grin, and then reached out and scratched affectionately over her scalp as she brayed, and rubbed her shoulder and back. "I love you, my little buttercup," he whisper-crooned over her head, as he leaned over and kissed and moussed her hair. "Little _Wild_ card." She believed every word, and thought that finally mystery had been unraveled: of course it had taken a clown to arbitrarily start calling her by the name of a precious-looking, small, sunny, and _highly caustic_ flower.


	20. Winding Down

When Wildcard woke, she was confused and disoriented to see the sky outside her window was dark. How long had she been asleep? Drained, a little dehydrated, and blinking back sleep, she frowned at the nightstand beside her pillow. _Did I sleep through the entire night and then the entire day?_ Wildcard normally had a tough time sleeping, not the obverse.

Well, if she'd needed some kind of 'sign' to help unravel how she'd felt about yesterday, this was pretty clear cut: Yesterday had taken a chunk out of her, just as surely as if she'd been recovering from a sprain, or from a long-distance endurance race. She lifted a hand to her face and rubbed all about in a firm circle to try and rouse herself. Was her phone about to ring?

Oh! Wildcard sat up quickly and scrabbled at her night stand. She dug the phone out of the drawer, and lifted it up just as Sandro's number showed up, and yawned as she accepted the call.

"Wild?" His voice was soft, soft enough she wagered he feared being overheard.

"Hey San," she murmured, perhaps equally subdued. "What, um, what happened after...?"

"...after you _screwed me over_?" he hissed, but there was no real bite behind the accusation. Wildcard flinched regardless, and thought herself callous for sleeping clear through all his troubles (even if she couldn't have possibly helped). Sandro was quiet a long pause, and then mumbled a confused: " _Nothing_."

"Nothing?" Was that something to be relieved about? Sandro didn't sound relieved. Her brows furrowed as she wiped sleep from her eyes.

"Well," her friend murmured, "my dad did ream me for leaving home in a storm but... _Mikey_. Mikey hasn't said anything yet. No one's talked to me about going topside. About you. I don't think Mikey's said a word to anyone, not even _Donatello_."

"What does that mean...?"

"I'm not sure." His voice was so quiet, and not just to foil eavesdroppers. She could imagine him shaking his head unknowingly, and she wanted to hug him.

"So... so what do you think we should do?"

"I don't know."

"We could just bunker down independently," she offered in an attempt to alleviate his stress, "and play a video game on the net. What's your favorite FPS? I'll buy a copy, and a gaming headset. If anything's still open..." _What time is it, even?_ Blah, she had slept _forever_.

Sandro was silent a pause, before guiltily blurting: "I want to see you."

Wildcard suddenly had a mental picture of him sitting at the foot of his bed, knees hugged up against his chest; and she felt very, very, very bad. "So that you can kill me?" she joked to rescue him.

"Little bit." He paused. "But maybe it's a bad idea. The second I'd left, Michelangelo would guess I was going out to see you."

"Are you not grounded, by the way?"

"No," Sandro found that funny. "I got a talking-to, but that was it. Like I said, Mikey didn't tell them anything, just joked it was wet up there and then started teasing my dad for being angry, so there wasn't much to forgive."

 _Orange turtle confirmed as having dazzling personality._ "Maybe he'll cover for you again?"

"Wild, use your brain. He's a shinobi. It would be very easy for him to get into position to watch us from afar without us even knowing. The most plausible explanation for his silence is that he's waiting for me to go out to meet you so that he can tail you home and figure out who you are. Or even confront you personally. I am not going to blunder into that like some novice."

"Oh, I _see_." She pushed herself upright as she considered the new dangers inherent with meeting him. "Well, we have a secret weapon against that kind of espionage, you surely realize."

"We do?"

"Daylight hours," Wildcard supplied with a grin. "As long as we meet in a decently populated area, we'll see any giant, trench-coated stalkers from miles away, and I can literally escape by running off into a crowd or changing my clothing, hair, and colored contacts in a McDonald's restroom. I'm not the one six feet tall; I blend in _anywhere_. Not to mention you're still a lot smaller and easier to sneak out in public than your family members, and you have help fitting in."

Sandro seemed to perk up at the plan, though of course she could not see him. His voice was less despairing when he spoke next. "Michelangelo even sleeps clear through the day," he agreed. "Tomorrow at the park?"

"It's a date. Though if we're counter-ninja-ing, whoever bought your phone plan might have the ability to track you by hardware GPS, even if you try to switch it off through software. They'll also be able to see my phone number; but my GPS stays off behind a physical switch, and there's no paper trail leading from the number to my house."

"That's very ninja of you for someone with no grasp of any actual ninjitsu," Sandro complemented backhandedly, and she grinned to hear some fire back in him. "Though you don't know the half of it. All the telecommunications down here go through a system Donatello has complete control over, so if Mikey asked him he could theoretically wiretap our conversations and be listening in right now."

 _Purple turtle confirmed as being a technological genius._ "So I shouldn't spill all my deepest darkest secrets about where to get the world's best Parmesan over the phone, that's what you're saying?"

"Exactly. We can leave it at just specifying our meeting place and time. Eight AM fair? I'll temporarily disable my GPS and just hope tomorrow isn't the day I ironically get kidnapped. If Donnie happens to try and check up on me for some reason, he'll _freak_ , but he won't get led to you."

"Hey! You know how to do that?" It was interesting to hear Sandro knew his way about phone hardware. "Well, your hypothetical kidnappers would have to kidnap me, too, and that would honestly be the worst mistake they'd ever make."

"I'd say. You'd talk them to death before they even got a gag near you. " Pause. "See you tomorrow, Wild."

"Ditto. Give Lady Smiles-A-Lot a hug from me."

He was in a better mood, so she was in a better mood, too. "Roger that."

* * *

Wildcard made her way downstairs to have a meal vaguely resembling breakfast. Her father was singing to himself, as he sharpened a box of knives, and his airy tone of voice was her first clue that things were odd.

The house was spotless, it looked like every counter-top, wall, and window had been washed. The floors had been mopped. The smell of bleach hung thick in the air. Wildcard peered about uncertainly, and then came up and leaned over to have a look at her father's messy face. And it was quite messy.

"Joker, have you slept?" she asked.

"Oh-hey!" he greeted with a laugh. "Look who finally woke up!"

"Did you _sleep_?" she repeated, eyes narrowing.

"No, though, ah, _you_ sure did! People don't usually stay down that long unless I slip them something! Doubbllle-checked the cookies just to make sure I hadn't." He stuck out his tongue a little in a tease.

"Joker, I think you've been up nearly forty-eight solid hours..."

"Sssounds about right. What about you, squirt? Don't you usually have some kind of, nmmh, mild in-som-nia? I think the most hours I've ever seen you sleep is six or seven..."

"Aren't you even slightly tired?" she fished.

He shrugged with a smirk, and went back to singing to himself and peening a burr out of one of the knives. A glance outside told her that he'd managed to save some of their tulips, which meant he'd been outside (though hopefully with a hood on). She didn't dare ask what other 'chores' he'd managed to get done that morning, but she speculated New Jersey might have spontaneously accrued some proximity mines, rubber chickens, buckets of slime, and joke flowers in odd places.

Wildcard thought about this and then reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. She shuffled and bridged them over the table. "Hey Dad, I'm going to do a magic trick. I want to research whether it's possible to mess with my reflections. Also I think it might be in the best interest of your continued psychological health."

He blinked up at her with a raised brow and then observed as she fanned out the cards. "Take one," she instructed him. He obliged and reached out to do so. She folded the deck. "What did you get?" She already knew, and not merely because she'd fed him the card.

"A Joker," he said even before he turned it over to have a look.

"Alas, you're just too _good_ at this game," she mock-praised while trying to keep her focus.

"Nnh, the likelihood of it being anything else was too low," he mused with a smirk. "That the end?"

"No, I'm going to magically transform it," she told him sagely. She reached out to take the card, and held it up facing him. "One moment it's a Joker, the next...!" She spun the card with a snap of her fingers and a clandestine swap.

Her father flinched hard enough his whole body contorted briefly, and his eyes closed. He was quiet a moment, reeling. Then he leaned forward and pressed fingers to the bridge of his nose as if hit by a tremendous migraine, and set the knife down.

Experiment successful: her father had not anticipated the Jack of Spades to make an appearance. A Joker had turned into a Jack. _His name._ She peered curiously at him and then folded the cards back into the deck. "Dad...?"

"That hit me like a _bus_ ," her father remarked, his voice once more a _sonorous_ baritone. "Good work. I deserved to be hit by a bus."

"You and me both. Just sit there for a sec, okay?" Wildcard got up and fetched a washcloth and some makeup remover, and came back and sat on the table in front of him. Hazel eyes looked up to her. "You need a shower, and then it's bedtime," she teased, reaching out to steady his cheek and then wiping a big, careful swipe of paint from his face. He closed his eyes under the ministrations and nearly fell asleep right there.

"Sorry," he said, abruptly.

"What for this time? For not sleeping? You should be. I'm very cross with you, Mr. Hamilton." She dabbed gently about his eye to get all the black off.

"I'm the adult. You shouldn't be the one taking care of me."

"You were as high as a _kite_ ," she cackled. "Not that I minded, exactly, because you're splendid company regardless of what octave you're speaking in, but I have homework due soon and I don't think you would have made a very good educator in that condition. "

Her father gave a heavy sigh. "Can I maybe make you something to eat...?"

"Shower and bedtime, Mister. You can pack me a lunchbox tomorrow, when you've recovered. Fair?"

He was too exhausted to protest, but he said, "I owe you... a conversation." And, well, that was fair. Because no matter how much she might have instinctively wanted to live by 'out of sight, out of mind,' her father had genuinely scared her and that would take a bit for either of them to recover from.

* * *

[Author's Note] They had a conversation near the end of 'Buttercup,' the prequel, where Joker tells her his actual name is Jack Napier, and her actual name is Buttercup Napier. She made the decision to treat these this information like sacred knowledge, and doesn't really consider Buttercup to be her name anyway. He asked never to be called Jack.


	21. BFF Agreement

Wildcard crept slowly to the edge of the tree just past the archway, gauging the distance. Could she make it? Hmm, the outcome wasn't certain. Oh well, a broken leg would be comical at this juncture- oh _hey_ , he slid from the left side of the path to the right. _Target acquired_. She made the leap-!

Sandro grunted as a tiny maniac fell two stories and landed with her fingers clasped tightly onto his shoulders and her boots firm on the back of his coat. "There you are. I hope your shoes are clean," he groused.

"What!" she exclaimed, and then lowered her voice because she'd just jumped two stories and landed on someone, and had already attracted plenty of attention. "You aren't surprised?" He hadn't even taken his hands out of his pockets, or staggered!

"Hmm, let's see," Sandro thought aloud, "which one of us is a ninja? Oh, that's _right_..."

"You can't even lift your head to look around...!" she hissed in disappointment as she dropped her feet to dangle. Best not to unintentionally highlight the shape of his shell when the padding of his coat did such a good job obscuring it.

"I could hear you," he chortled, clearly pleased with her malcontent.

"You don't have _ears_ , either," she pouted as he continued to walk onward like she weighed nothing.

"Would that this was true; it might have spared me from the sound of your voice from the beginning. _Alas_." He reached back to grab her arm and pull her up a few inches. "I have no _external_ ears so that there is nothing for waterborne bacteria to infect. And if you're going to dig your fingers into ridges of my armor to hang on like some kind of chimpanzee, could you please aim for past my collar and not the lip of the shell?"

"Oh. Okay. Why?" She did as he said, and got her chin up onto his shoulder.

"Because then you're putting your weight over my center of gravity instead of pulling my shell backwards and down. Come on, Wild, this is basic leverage. You should be able to figure out this with your head, regardless of training."

She stuck out her tongue and then wondered: "What's it say about me that I'm _happy_ I weigh enough to minorly impact your balance?"

The question momentarily startled him and then she felt more than saw the grin which spread across his face. "I think it says you a very strange girl, Anastasia Hamilton."

She snickered into him at the understatement, and gave him a squeeze. "I got scared of losing you for a bit, there," she admitted.

His smile faded. "So why'd you out me?" he almost-growled, still mad at her for that.

Wildcard took a deep breath. "It made sense at the time," she confessed. "Somehow I make loads of spectacular and loud mistakes for a person with my particular talents."

Sandro gave a hard snort, but then shrugged lightly. "Humanizes you," he decided to forgive. "Did something else happen? You're being clingy."

 _Oops, am I?_ Wildcard let go of him and hopped to the ground. He half-turned as she joined his side. "Sorry. I guess I just-"

"-didn't say you had to stop-" Sandro muttered at the same time.

The two children paused, and shifted awkwardly for a moment. Then Sandro pulled a gloved hand out of his pocket, and reached out to invite Wildcard into occupying the space beside him, so they could walk fairly close together without his elbow keeping them apart. She noted that today's shirt color was blue. He noted she seemed a little off her usual tempo. Each of them ultimately failed to realize how badly the other wanted to be hugged.

"Gonna come clean?" he prodded after a bit, as they neared the central fountains.

"Um," Wildcard cleared her throat. Uncannily, it seemed he could tell something was wrong, and she wanted to be open with him. "My dad apparently followed you and I through the storm the other night. He overheard me give myself away to Michelangelo."

Sandro frowned down at her, copper eyes searching her face, sensing her acute discomfort: "How did he react?"

Wildcard chewed her bottom lip for a moment, and then let out a surprisingly shakily little laugh. "He-he threw a _fit_. Screaming some... some pretty intense things. You-you gotta understand he's never previously cursed at me in my entire life. But for like sixty solid seconds, he was having a miniature breakdown. And, um, we sorted it after, and had a long conversation, but..." Wildcard crossed her arms and affected nonchalance, incredibly uncomfortable, and not knowing where to go with this. It wasn't like she wanted to complain about her dad, or give anyone a less than stellar picture of him.

"But you still feel shell-shocked," Sandro suggested.

She was quiet a moment. "Yeah," she agreed with a scuff of her feet against the path. "Something like that."

Sandro stared down at the top of her hoodie for a bit, unable to see more of her. He decided to give some perspective as a means of comfort: "I spent fifteen minutes getting browbeaten for _misjudging the weather_."

Wildcard laughed hard and full at that. "I guess I've got thin skin!" She grinned up at him. "I do have an unexpectedly tender parent for someone who lobs knives and lit dynamite my way, don't I?"

"Yes, and the two of you are equally creepy nutcases." Sandro sniffed at her, audibly. "And if I'm not mistaken, he's packed some kind of mouth-watering sandwich for you."

"Ah, see that is where you are wrong! He packed _four_ egg-salad sandwiches, two protein smoothies with strawberries and bananas, and an entire tub of vanilla yogurt!"

"Your father packed _me_ lunch, too?" He imagined Donatello would have done the same, if some important things about their situations had been reversed. "What did I do to deserve such affection?"

"Clearly you left a good impression! See? It's like I'm always telling you, San, you're extremely likable. Who wouldn't like you? Hmm? No one. You're perfect."

He chuffed almost bashfully, but then chuckled. "Sure." They'd reached the fountain, which was a good enough place as any to gather their thoughts.

"So I tried to think of what we could do today," she began conversationally, "and decided to bring some of my school books. I'm behind on some of my homework and figured if your uncles are going to try spying on us, they might as well catch us nose-deep in _To Kill a Mockingbird_. That would make a funny lecture, wouldn't it? 'How dare you sneak out to study!?'"

"That actually sounds like a good idea," he admitted. "If I'm going to get in trouble soon—because of _you_ —I'd rather play it off as mundane and low key. It's not like this is a very good place to train in day time, anyway. The open space is here, but there's too many eyes."

"The major restriction is you can't move very dynamically without accidentally flashing your face to onlookers," she agreed, clambering onto the fountain edge and crossing her legs as she dug about in her backpack for her books. "You always look like you've walked clear out of some kind of anime, video game, or action movie in that fantastic coat, by the way."

"Why thank you. Not my handiwork, though." Which felt like it ought to have segued into a description of the (clearly highly competent) family tailor, but somehow didn't.

Wildcard paused, squinting. It was normal for Sandro to speak freely of his family members. Then she thought about which of the turtles was _usually_ depicted as taking a lot of ill-advised alone-time above ground in a trench coat. The predominant option was– Sandro sat beside her, and snapped her back to the present. She smirked at him, suggesting,"We should take advantage of the whole cosplay scene to get our hands on a bunch of equally nice coats and costumes for you. For variety!"

"I'd have to explain where they came from," he drawled as he watched the morning park-goers. "Although it is sort of funny to think you could probably get away with waltzing into an open street corner of a city block, wrapped head-to-toe in ninja guise, and the only reaction you'd get is compliments on the costume."

"Oh yeah, _I_ could totally pull that off." Wildcard squinted at him and then shut one eye and lifted up a hand and blocked out her own vision of the space beneath the point of his nose. "Hmm." He noticed and raised his brows. "Just thinking. Let it percolate in my brain for a bit till it gets less stupid." She went back to pulling out her notebooks.

Hey, um... Wild." He oughtn't let her pretend everything was okay if everything wasn't, but wasn't sure what to say. "About your dad. I just want to say that I understand why you are upset. You like him, and you love him, but watching him flip out on you still hurt. It's not crazy to need... um, to need a little time to yourself, or a little comfort, or whatever." He shifted awkwardly.

"...Thanks," she said after a bit.

Sandro's gaze swept back to her for a bit. He was quiet. After a short pause, he scooped up her English reader. She'd stuffed a paper in between the pages, and he opened to that page. "Are these your test scores?" he asked, scooping up the paper to survey it. "Wild. You are in remedial language arts and... still barely scraping a C-?" He looked to her, where she was cringing preemptively. "This is shameful, Wild."

"Well I brought it up from a D!" she protested. "Can't you be happy for me!?"

"Shameful," he used the test scores to swat her gently over the top of the head.

Wild scowled at him. "Well that's what you're here for, _Hamato_ ," she snarled. "To help me!"

He looked down at the reader "I've got my work cut out for me. Do you have highlighters? Maybe note cards?" She snarked something about 'differential equations' and he knew she'd get him back later, but he smiled to himself at the temporary victory.

* * *

Morning crept by, hour by hour, as the children several times relocated their sitting positions about the lip of the fountain for comfort's sake and pored over textbooks, spiral notebooks, and index cards. They enjoyed being normal. They repeatedly frustrated and then rescued one-another with academic quandaries. Sandro went through a few different color schemes using highlighters, and presented each for Wildcard's inspection. He watched her face as she tried to read them, and stopped her to try something new if he could tell she was having trouble.

"Your handwriting is beautiful," she said after a bit. "We could make a Blackletter font out of it and sell it on the internet."

"Yours looks like an asylum inmate's," he ribbed back, and she nearly fell over laughing because it was much more true than he realized.

"Speaking of that! We don't have any stalkers yet and it's almost noon," she noted, wiping tears of mirth from her face. "I think we're in the clear for the day.

She heard an unexpected growl reenter his voice. "You still owe me _big_."

"For what?"

"What you _did_ ," he snapped, face suddenly very serious. "You sold me out. For _fun_." He gave a small shake of his head. "I mean do you have any idea how bad this could get, for me? Or how much worse it could have been for you?"

"You made _me_ be honest to my dad," she argued. "And it sounded like you didn't know _what_ to tell your uncle, so I just-"

"Took the choice out of my hands? I would have _never, ever_ given away the whole of it. Telling your dad you'd gotten in one scrap was _very_ different and we already basically knew he'd forgive you. You _wanted_ me to push you to tell him!" Sandro had flushed a little, clearly angry, and so looked away from her to cool down, but added: "And... and I _still_ followed on your heels immediately afterwards to see if you were okay and-and tried to calm you down when you obviously weren't."

The unspoken couplet was a bitter: _Which is much more than you did for me. S_ he uncrossed her legs and leaned forward with a murmur of, "Sandro," but he gave a little sneer and shook his head.

"Forget it," he dismissed with a snap. "I didn't want to say anything. Just forget it." She reached up and settled a hand on his shoulder. He stiffened and added in a scathing hot tone of voice: "I had no idea, walking back with Michelangelo to our house, if I'd ever see you again. Do you realize that?"

She crossed her books on her knees, easing an arm across his back. "Are... you gonna call me clingy again?" she asked slowly.

He shot her a boiling but uncertain look. "You were hanging on me!" he accused as if that made any sense at all.

"Clingy is not a word with positive connotations!" she argued, now equally angry and confused by him. "I was upset, and I've _never_ been the one to initiate a hug before, and I thought-!"

"You always _cringe_ when I touch you!" he sputtered, eyes widening, "I can't figure you out and wasn't going to pretend hugging you was for your benefit if all I was doing was making _myself_ feel better and making you worse!"

"You think I _pretend_ to calm down when you hug me!?" Wildcard gaped at him in dismay. "The first time I ever touched _your back_ you accused me of _groping_ you!" she shouted.

"That's _exactly what you were doing_!" he shouted back. "And I'm not the one with fake smiles!"

She released him with an audible snarl and an angry thundercloud on her countenance, but he spun to grab hold of her and drag her back over him. "Wait," he begged feebly, having said everything wrong. " _Wait_."

"Make up your damn mind!" Wildcard demanded, latching her arms tightly about his neck and stuffing her face into the side of his hood at about his temple. He reached around her, and his fingers closed behind her back and pulled her closer. She obliged, till the curve of his knee stopped her, and he stretched out his legs to make room.

She settled in beside him, and breathed deeply in and out as he hid his face in her. "You're stupid," she said at last. His arms squeezed around her. She melted down, slowly. When she felt tears beading and falling she wasn't even sure _why_ , because she'd spent too long pretending to be different people to know much about herself. Still, she was pretty sure _Sandro_ understood whatever it was that she didn't, because he lifted up a hand to wipe her face before he could have ever possibly known she was crying; it wasn't like she'd made a sound.

* * *

Lunch had come, so they sat on the ground beside the fountain as Wildcard divvied up their provisions and asked him to shake the smoothies to get them all frothy again. They ate in companionable nearness, and worked valiantly not to loose any egg-salad from their sandwiches as they ate. Sandro had the most trouble, because he had to juggle keeping his face hidden with optimizing sandwich consumption.

Wildcard giggled, and reached over with a napkin to dab his collar clean of an accidental splatter.

"Ngh. Thanks. This is always unnecessarily hard and I'm worried I'll leave stains one day."

"I'll ask him to pack something bite-sized," she snickered. "Or at least nothing with copious tomato sauce."

"It's _delicious_ ," he forbade her from lopping food off the menu just because it was messy. "What is it called? Egg _salad_? I should— _tactically_ —suggest something like it to Don or Mikey for downstairs mealtimes."

Wildcard blinked up at her tall friend, and then went back to eating her sandwich in silent and writhed the toes of her shoes together for a bit. At last she took a big breath and tilted her head back to peer at him. "Your dad is _Raphael_ , isn't he?"

Sandro jerked forward an inch with a surprised choke on his sandwich, and then looked to her in bewilderment. He swallowed his food. " _What_?"

"Well, I was thinking about your repeated insistence I be honest with you, and I thought maybe I should tell you: The day I met you, I went home and gathered all my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic books, and hid them under my bed where they've been ever since." She watched his eyes widen. "It seemed inappropriate to read them anymore. But you've mentioned Leonardo, Donatello, and I've seen Michelangelo, so I assume there really are four turtles, and that the fourth is named Raphael."

Her enormous, _actual,_ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stared at her for a short while. "This explains what you said that first week," he realized, "about not researching turtles or anything."

"I was trying _so hard_ not to be weird," she admitted. "Please tell me you noticed I liked you kinda immediately and way before having even the slightest idea what you were, and then didn't ask you any questions at all."

" _And_ bribed me with pizza," he agreed, slowly sitting back. "But why would you guess my dad was Raphael?"

"He's the only one of the four you haven't mentioned by name," she explained. "I checked the mentions off in my head. You speak of Michelangelo and Donatello a lot, and fondly, and Leonardo a little distantly but also fondly. I've seen you wear orange, purple, blue, and you have two black shirts you like, which are very slimming by the way, but you never wear red. I thought that might just be my imagination until I actually got a look at Michelangelo and realized he definitely wears orange. And, of course, Raphael is usually depicted as bad-tempered, and you told me Mikey co-authored the comics so I suppose he'd know best, and you've made it clear you argue with your father a lot. So by now he seems the only possible candidate. Am I right?"

"Yeah." Sandro was quiet for a moment. "You keep a mental inventory of what my clothing looks like?"

"And speculate you own red shirts you never wear," she agreed informatively. "And mentally dress you in cosplay. Honestly we're all just lucky I don't own a copy of The Sims. That shit would get weird, fast. I'm pretty sure Batman would be gay, among other things, and the amount of times I'd have to remove the entrance to a pool to drown all the ladies hitting on Sim-You would leave the place overpopulated in ghosts."

Sandro laughed and shook his head helplessly, lost. "Watashi wa anata to koishite iru to omou _._ "

" _What_?" she demanded.

"You're such a _clown_ ," he grinned at her. "Best friends forever?" He lifted a hand.

Wildcard answered with one hell of a high-five. "No matter _what_ ," she agreed, fingers lacing tight with his. "You'll never get rid of me, Mister Hamato, and that's a promise. Even if I have to," she gestured to her history book, still open beside herself, "roll myself up in a rug delivery like Cleopatra to meet Caesar. Ha! See? I've successfully read shit! You're a _hero_."

He laughed harder and then leaned forward slyly: "Please no surprise deliveries. We'd have to flush you down the toilet to get you safely out again, and that's a tight squeeze even for you." She pounced on him.

And that somehow answered the question of what would happen if Michelangelo told his father (or anyone else) that Sandro had been going topside to hang out with a stranger: The two of them would scheme, and the two of them would stay friends somehow even if it involved gaming headsets and emails. They'd figure it out, and they'd not give up, and no one could stop them.

* * *

[Author's Note] You can actually use Google translate to figure out what Sandro said; it should translate correctly. If you actually speak Japanese, you'll probably notice Sandro's choice in words proves he was not raised 100% Japanese XD, as no Japanese person would actually say it that way.


	22. Makeup!

Wildcard glanced at the time as she fumbled for her ringing phone. She wasn't used to mobilizing at six in the morning anymore. "Hey San," she yawned on answering. "What's the scoop? Has Ragnarok come for ye?"

"Still nothing," Sandro muttered. Wildcard laughed at his tone. This was like living with a storm cloud overhead in anxious, paranoid anticipation of a flash flood. It's not like either of them _wanted_ to see the worst happen, but some tiny stressed-out part of him had to be thinking, 'Just get it over with!'

"Well we're in a pickle," she observed slowly. "Daylight and heavy crowds are good for warding off nosy relatives, but that means we can't do anything fun either. And I know you're freaking out about the risk of exposure. Right?"

"I don't know. I kinda _like_ it," Sandro admitted slowly, voice thick with a vague and awkward guilt. "Not just for the adrenaline, either. Walking around in broad daylight with other people everywhere, invisible, almost normal..." He took a deep breath and hastily added, "But we need exercise or we are going to go stir crazy, and we aren't getting that anywhere but alone. Not the least of which because it's too hot to do anything with full coat on. That thing has a lot of padding in it to buff out the shape of my shell..."

"Well! If that's how you feel, what the hell are we waiting for? Let's head out! If there's one thing I always have, it's a scheme for something fun we can do, and I've been turning over some ideas for how we might get that 'exercise.' Let's play the hand we've been dealt and learn to hide in plain sight. You in?"

"I appreciate your ability to frame everything I've ever previously assumed was impossible into a gun-ho _challenge,_ " he replied, a grin dawning in his voice. "Challenges are something I _get_."

"Booya _kasha!_ "

"Oh my _god_ ," he groaned in disbelief. "You did not just say that."

"Haha! Is that how you feel? Then you can stay over there with all your stuffy English and Japanese, and I will be over here with the _good_ words." She sat up. "Give me fifteen minutes to slap myself awake and eat something. Oh! Sandro? Let's go to the Mall! I've been struck by brilliance. Also we can oogle cute animals at the pet store. That's the most important part."

"Newport? Got it," he laughed. "I'll call you when I've picked a manhole."

They hung up, and Wildcard flew down to the bathroom to splash water in her face. She stepped out and hopped into the kitchen, where her father was reading the newspaper. He glanced up shyly at her and then gestured with his chin across the table. A bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee crowned in whipped cream were waiting. "Morning, squirt."

Wildcard pounced him with a hug, and that seemed to reassure him. Her father hadn't made direct eye-contact with her since 'the incident,' which was making it difficult for her to seek advice about Sandro's situation or even just leave the traumatic experience firmly behind them. "I got a question," she said, petting through his curly hair and gathering it behind him. He needed a haircut. She obtained a knife and quickly solved that for him. There, all better! She disposed of the discarded locks, and mussed the surviving length to put it back to natural disorder. "It's about makeup."

He was bemused and tilted his head back to look at her. _There we go. Eye contact._ "Aren't you a little young to be wearing makeup?" he asked suspiciously, despite the fact that she'd worn all sorts of make-up all her life as part of her different identities.

"Oh it's not for _me...!"_

* * *

"So what are we buying at the Mall?" Sandro asked as the two of them started through the largely empty parking lot. It was still early in the day.

"Well first I can tell you what we're not going to buy: we are _not_ going to buy a dog," Wildcard informed him sternly. "That's a certainty. No dogs will be purchased on this adventure, not even if dad increased my allowance this morning."

Sandro peered down at her. "Was that an instruction set for me?" Honestly Wildcard liked every instance in which Sandro looked at her, and not just because the attention of a best friend was crazy addictive. The crisp curve of his beak and tan whorls of his skin were a constant reminder that he really existed, that people who were so _freaking awesome_ really did exist. It was a terrible shame he'd never get to be proud of his looks.

Oops, she was staring again. "I should probably add we cannot buy a cat, either," she tried to save herself.

"I strongly suspect this is your way of telling me that I will have to remind you that we are going into the pet store with the explicit intention of _looking_ , and that we are not to emerge with any pets at all. Not even tarantulas or goldfish."

Wildcard tried to look innocent, as if she had no idea where his assumption had come from! Then she folded and snickered out a: "Yeah, that's probably for the best." She cleared her throat. "And then after that we're heading over to a beauty supplies store."

"What? What the shell for? You aren't fantastically over-the-top enough already and want to buy yourself some bright pink lipstick and sparkly fake eyelashes?"

She nearly died laughing, and he had to drag her along by the elbow so she didn't get hit by a car. "Where does this come from!? Why do you know me so well!? No!" she cackled. "No, we're buying an extra level of defense for our arsenal! It just so happens that 'human-colored face paint' is available at every cosmetics store in the nation!"

He bristled. "We are buying _me_ makeup?"

"Ayup! Don't be emasculated, my dad's a makeup artist and does stuff like this daily. I won't claim to share in even a measurable fraction of his knowledge, but I've at least got the basics down. He wrote out a list of products for me; Hence the increase in my allowance. Mind you, your skin texture's different, so we might have to try a few things."

Sandro wasn't certain how to feel about this, and reflexively lifted a hand towards his face. Then he said: "The beak isn't something one can hide with makeup."

"Yeah this won't let you replace your coat anytime soon, but if you mess up and someone gets a quick peek inside your hood," she held up a hand to cover her nose and mouth as an explanation, "your cheek, brow, and eyes are all passably human, and that's all anyone can see above your coat collar, especially if your tuck your chin. Pinking you up a bit might let you get away with a close call when otherwise there would be an incident."

And Sandro couldn't argue with that logic because every little bit was going to help. Still, he fell very peculiar as he followed her into the building.

* * *

"But the schnauzerrr!" Wildcard wailed melodramatically as she kicked and flailed upon his shoulder. "Look at her nooossse! Look at her mustacchhe! I _neeeddd_ heerrrr!"

"No can do Agent Wildcard." Sandro carried her out of the store with an amused tolerance for her nonsense, as store employees leaned over to watch them depart. "If you get a dog, I'll make you get _me_ a dog, and coming home with that husky puppy will definitely not go over well with the parents."

Wildcard sobbed and slumped, defeated, and gave a very heavy sigh. "They were so cute."

He grinned to himself, and patted her back. "There there. You did the right thing."

She lifted her head and said in a victorious hiss: "I regret nothing."

He laughed, and then paused at the botique ahead of them. "Ah..." He reoriented her and dropped her to the ground, and she turned about. "This what we were looking for?"

"Precisely! Now just loiter behind me indolently like a good big brother who's gotten stuck taking his baby sister out shopping!"

Sandro made a face and followed her into the establishment with the same wariness one might display whilst traversing a monster-infested bog. Wildcard pulled up some notes on her phone, and skipped through the aisle-ways like a man on a mission to find a new set of socket wrenches instead of a girl set loose in a beauty parlor. She scarcely looked at anything at all aside from the brands and bottles she'd been set to find.

"Do there really need to be a thousand different kinds of face cream?" Sandro asked her as she rummaged through boxes and bottles. "What's the difference between any of it?"

She laughed. "Branding, quality of ingredients, function, and the arduous and unreasonable demands of the client. This," she said, lifting up a bottle for him, "is optional. It'snot makeup, its a primer. Can you deduce why it is called a primer?"

"It goes on... before anything else?" he asked hesitantly.

"Exactly. This next one is a sweat-resistant, full-cover foundation. Can you suspect why they call it a foundation?"

"Presumably because it's the first makeup applied and everything else is put on top of it?" Well that was less difficult than one might expect.

"And it is called 'full-cover' because it is highly opaque and blocks out the underlying skin tone. Very useful if you have acute acne and don't want to look like a pepperoni pizza lost a duel against a hedgehog. Or, ya know, have other skin pigment issues."

She handed him the tube, and he was dismayed by it. "Is it seriously fifty dollars?"

"I'm presently carrying enough money to buy a dog. Think that over."

"Women are _expensive_ ," Sandro realized, and Wildcard snickered.

"Painting one's own face is a strange cultural art form," she cooed, standing up and making her way down the aisle as she looked for her next ingredients: a bronze, some rouge, a palette for color correction. They needed applicators: brushes and blenders. "And in pursuit of that art, people are willing to pay for the right paint. This is a setting powder. Guess why they call it- Sandro?"

Wildcard turned about and found that Sandro had broken a cardinal safety rule in failing to follow close behind her. Wow, that boy could move _silently_. She backtracked, found where she'd lost him, and came up to see what had grabbed his attention. Oh _ho_. The shop sold wigs beside its hair-extensions. Wildcard leaned in close to elbow her distracted turtle gently. "What color is your mom's hair?"

"Brown," he said without inflection. "Or, red?"

"That color sounds like 'auburn.' You want one?"

He stiffened and then almost glared at her defensively with a darkening of his cheeks. " _No_."

Wildcard planted her hands on her hips and leaned back to inspect him. "Calling it now: You totally played dress-up with mom's high-heels and makeup as a toddler."

He recoiled in mortification so sharply that he nearly backed into a shelf and sent makeup sprawling. Wildcard squeaked and grabbed hold of him, and pulled his head down, and grinned up into his gravely distressed face. "Have you any idea how many parents film their kids doing that and then put it up on Youtube?" she giggled evilly. "That's _normal!_ "

"I haatttee yooou," he growled slowly, fingers twitching as he repressed the urge to resolve his feelings on this matter with roughhousing.

"Yeah? Whatcha gonna do about it?" she dared with a pointy grin.

Sandro grabbed her hand, and promptly bent one of the fingers back.

"Aaeei!" she squealed in immediate defeat, trying to contort to follow the bend so that it hurt less. "Okay! Okay, you win! I'm sorry!" He released her and she pouted convincingly as she rubbed the ouchy out of her fingers. But of course it only took her a few seconds to begin smiling mischievously again. "So not auburn," she said, and that was all it took for him to lunge for her again! Eek! But by now they were poised to cause a scene in a place they really oughtn't cause a scene, so she dropped to her knees and lifted her hands in a clasp of prayer. "Let me buy one! I'll pick it. I'd have to cut it anyway so it didn't look like a girl's style. Please?" she entreated.

Sandro glowered at her menacingly, but then didn't say anything. She scooted out from in front of him, and regained her feet, and then went to attack the wig aisle. Without _ears_ , Sandro would still look a little odd in a wig. But maybe that could be fixed later with some spirit gum and foam latex prosthetics. Now that she thought about it, this might shape up into _quite_ the interesting idea. She'd let it brew and talk to her dad.

* * *

"This is _stupid_ ," Sandro moaned boyishly as Wildcard hemmed him up against the alleyway dumpster and folded his collar down to get at his face.

"Hehe, you're just mad at me is all," she cooed. "This is gonna take a bit. Do you want to sit?"

He gave an unnecessarily heavy and dramatic sigh, and glared at nothing in particular over the top of her head.

Wildcard shook her head and decided not to tease him anymore as she dug out the primer and got some on a pad. He was grumpy, and perhaps deservedly so, and she ought to give him time to recover.

Besides! This was giving her an excuse to touch his face, and that was making her giddy inside. _Best enjoy that while I can!_ Er, not that she wanted to be weird about it, of course. Thinking back, she decided that both she and her father might classify as physically affectionate: Joker would take almost any excuse to tousle her hair or rub her back if she was in reach, and she was probably the same. But of course she had a tiny family size, and no siblings or cousins or aunts to dote on. Certainly no one to apply make up to! So... maybe interpersonal contact with Sandro was something of a treat? That sounded weird. It was weird, wasn't it? Sigh.

The foundation felt thick and needed to be applied by brush, but once it was in place it affected an immediately obvious color change and buffed out unusual textures. She was thorough, applying over the point of the nose and forehead and past the temples. His temples were interesting, because she could trace behind them to find where the jawbone met the cheek, which where the ear entered a normal person's head. _Woops! Don't get distracted._

Sandro's annoyed expression dropped down to her. She expected it to _worsen_ , but it had smoothed out a little. "How long does a typical girl spend applying makeup?" Fair question. He lived with three uncles and didn't have many other girls to ask.

"Depends whether she's just smoothing everything over or styling herself up pretty," she decided. "I've used make-up to lift or lower my skin color a few shades before, and that always took awhile. Whenever dad had to do my makeup up extra special, he'd wake me up a half hour early. But he's fast at it, and I'm not."

"Why would you change _your_ skin color?" he wondered as she picked up the bronzer and a fluffy brush.

"Well if ever had to move really suddenly, we'd sometimes need to make sure I wasn't recognizable," she explained. "New name, new hair color, new eye color, new hair style, randomly placed mole. My dad didn't have to do the same adjustments for himself, because he didn't have school pictures or paperwork leaving a trail behind him."

Sandro blinked at her slowly. His eyes were a human shape but a reptilian color, a grainy gold-flecked copper, with bright yellow around the exterior of the iris. "Anastasia's an alias," he deduced. "What is your actual name?"

"I don't really have one," she confessed with a little shrug as she fished out the color-correction palette. "The only name I can hold onto is _Wildcard_ , because that name doesn't leave footprints. Although," she thought to add, "I don't intend on moving again any time soon, so I should have 'Anastasia' for quite some time."

Sandro frowned thoughtfully and shook his head slightly. "What was your name in Gotham?"

"Terra," she said. "Though I never liked it. Do you know what 'Terra' means?"

"Earth," Sandro supplied quietly.

"Yeah. And if you had to pick a classical Greek element to represent me, which one would be dead last in your list of choices?"

He didn't answer, and she grew a little self-conscious with the way he stared down at her. After a bit, he asked, "What would you naturally look like?"

"Not so different than this, actually. When dad said he'd pull me out of school, I told him I wanted to go natural. My hair ought to be straight—completely straight—but this is the right color. I'm presently wearing contacts to alter the iris patterns so I can't ever be identified from place to place by security footage, but the color really is hazel. For reference, Terra had dark hair and brown eyes."

"This has been your whole life?" he asked, and then leaned slightly closer, eyes widening as she brought out the setting powder and dabbed his cheeks with it. "If somethin' makes your father move you again, is that what will happen? You'll completely disappear? Every trace of you?"

"Hey, San, don't panic," she counseled him as she pressed him back into position and leaned away to squint at her handiwork. "I made you a promise to be your best friend forever, and I'm a lady of my word." She pulled out the eyebrow pencil and leaned in close. Sandro had no natural eyelashes and no eyebrows, but strategic dabs of charcoal black could fix that. "Of course moving away right now would suck something awful, and you and I would both lose out on a fantastic playmate, but I'd still figure out some way to keep in contact with you remotely." He relaxed, if only a little. "I should probably tell you that it's very significant that my dad has given me the 'okay' to be friends with you. Despite, well, everything."

"Your dad... He must realize there's a possibility my family will find your house, or even try talking to you," Sandro discerned slowly. "He's just going to play it 'cool' and try to hide you both in plain sight? That doesn't sound like a flight risk who vanishes at the slightest chance of being noticed."

"We've always hidden in plain sight, and it's not being _noticed_ that worries him. It's being _identified..._ Though I think he's less flighty than when I was little."

"Look, Wild... I... What is it imperative that I _not_ tell my family?" Sandro asked her. "They're going to talk to me eventually. If I tell them _some_ things, what do I have to keep off the table?"

"Well," she took a thoughtful breath, putting away the pencil and pulling out scissors and the wig. "My father is officially deceased and needs to stay that way for his own personal safety. So downplay his eccentricities and skills as much as you can. As for me, I was used in lab experiments as a newborn where my captors tried to give other people my precognition, and the people behind those experiments clearly hunted me for awhile, so I can't tell anyone I can see the future." She sheared strategically about the wig.

Sandro watched her as she littered the ground with fake hair and clawed at the remaining strands to give them some volume. Then he stepped into her personal space, startling her, and reached down to the pocket of her hoodie. She blinked at him in confused, and then looked down as he drew out her deck of cards. He fanned them out, and said, "Sometimes my family plays rummy. It uses a standard deck of fifty-two cards, just like this." He select a card, and showed it to her. "Of which two are considered wild cards."

Wildcard looked at the proffered joker, her stomach curdling. _Of course. Sandro is uncannily perceptive, and smart, and you bombarded him with clues._ She still hadn't expected the connection to be drawn so fast, and she looked wide-eyed and fearful up at him. "I know you don't think I trust you sometimes," she said. "But I do."

He held her gaze for a long moment and then simply nodded and placed the card back into the deck and offered it back to her. She took it, and took a deep breath, and then overturned the wig to fold the lace and check the head cap. He glanced down at the wig and took a slow breath, but did not criticize it. "I dun think I can make that work without ears," he pointed out, though.

"Ah," she smirked, knocked back into her element, "but what you fail to appreciate it is that it is possible to give a person prosthetic ears with little more than basic Halloween supplies. Should I just give you the mirror so you can see how the makeup has gone, or would you like me to crown it with some hair for extra funzies?"

He eyed the wig disdainfully a bit, but then nodded that she should do as she wished. Wildcard glanced about to make absolutely sure no one would come bother them behind their dumpster. She reached up and pulled his hood down, and talked to him to keep him patient as she worked:

"Okay, so if you're curious this isn't just a shitty costume wig or anything. It can make for a very natural looking hairline if I pluck it for you. And I know—from experience!—that you can tape em down well enough they are actually difficult to get off. But! Since we have no idea if you'll even stomach its continued _existence_ a minute, this slap-dash application should be good enough for you to get an idea for what it looks like."

"I think this entire exercise has taken a ridiculous amount of time," he quipped, back to bantering with her now that their moment of intense info-sharing had passed. "Sure the make-up might help in a worst-case scenario, but havin' you apply all this _stuff_ every day when we already intend for no one to see my face seems a bit much."

"You only say that because you haven't seen it yet. You are going to get the shock of your life There!" She smoothed the hair and and then folded his collar back up. A smile tugged at her face. _Perfect._

"I doubt it's _that_ excitin," Sandro speculated uncertainly as she drew out a hand mirror and held it up facing away from him.

"Ready?" she asked, offering it to him by the handle.

Her enthusiasm must have been quite visible, because he suddenly looked quite hesitant about taking the mirror. But he did so, and slowly turned it about. She had to slap a hand over her mouth prematurely—

Because he _screamed_!

—and Wildcard would surely have fallen over laughing then and there if not for the horrified _wonderment_ on his face. He immediately cupped the mirror close and dabbed disbelievingly at the paints and powders upon his face. He tilted his head from side to side, but of course the hair obscured the makeup lines, and it took raising his chin to expose any of his natural skin color or mutant anatomy.

"In the name of..." he mumbled. "I look..."

"...very handsome in super-straight, black hair; and in desperate need of a Japanese topknot?" she sought to finish for him, lowering her hands to let her devious smile breathe.

Sandro looked at her almost as if on the verge of panic, and then quickly looked back to the mirror. "I... I didn't think..."

Wildcard felt her smile soften. After a silence stretched between them, she gave a gentle shrug, uncertain how he felt about this and uncertain how she ought to feel in response. "You absolutely _do not_ look like I took a cartoon Ninja Turtle and smeared peach on it."

"I look _human,_ " he breathed.

"Yeah," she agreed, "and slightly Asian, which I did not expect, although I guess I picked the color palette. I was looking at you the other day and realized you really had the right facial structure _above_ the snout... Though of course I couldn't do anything about the beak. Is it... okay? Do you want to wash it off? I bought makeup remover, we can-"

" _No!_ " he shouted in alarm.

Wildcard fell silent, not sure which subsection of his long line of inquiry he had just yelled 'no' at.

"This... I..." He couldn't find any words, and she suspected this was because his resignation to _never_ being normal had simply taken up so large a residence in his psychology that even this _tiny_ and incomplete escape from it had caused him intense distress and confusion. But he suddenly leaned forward and bunched her into a tight hug, and that was how she realized she'd done a good job. She wrapped her arms about him, as far as she could reach around that well-concealed shell, and she squeezed him tightly. " _Thanks_ , Wild."

"Booya-kasha," she hummed dreamily, because Sandro's unexpectedly emotional hugs were honestly starting to compete with 'cheese' and 'bad puns' at the top of her list of favorite things in the universe.

* * *

[Author's Note] I guiltily enjoyed writing his vulnerable/confused reaction to seeing fake hair for the first time, particularly in how he gets angry-embarrassed from not knowing how to feel. Because that seemed like a perfect he-is-Raphael's-son-after-all moment :D


	23. Picking on Eachother

[Author's Note] Sandro is lucky cosplay/hoodies are in vogue :3 It lets him get away with a hooded and cowled look that his parents didn't have access too. The clothing in the 80s was unhelpful (and hilarious-looking) on a turtle :3  
[Another Note] If you ever want to good belly laugh, look up 'Raphael in Trench Coat' and search for photo stills from the 2014 movie scene that ended up on the cutting room floor. Real subtle there Raph :D The original cult classic 1990s live action pulled that look off so much more easily by including a backpack. Though I guess they also had a much smaller turtle to work with XD.  
[Another Note] Come to think of it, maybe Sandro is just lucky he's with a person who can predict into the future about whether he'll get spotted... That's a pretty near-impenetrable first line of defense, dontcha think?

* * *

'Just one more gray fish in a school of a thousand other gray fish,' Wildcard had put it. He watched her body language closely as they walked, because she was anything but a 'gray fish' but had passed for one all her life. If she could do it, then he'd learn the same.

The one thing 'Ms. Jane' would not tolerate from her Aikido students was _skipping_ , explained Wild, which was as good an excuse as any to begin perfecting the art of smuggling Sandro into a wide assortment of buildings. Some buildings had roof maintenance accesses, others had side doors which could be held open (against the rules) for visitors, and Wildcard knew a great deal about disabling fire alarms and simple locking mechanisms.

The maintenance door on top of her Community Recreation Center could be opened with nothing more sophisticated than a credit card, which surely would have made him feel bad if he'd had any other choices. Descending the stairs into the rest of the building and blending in was then just a matter of casual stealth.

Risks had turned into challenges.

"I'm _sure_ she'll let you come in to the practice room to watch," Wildcard mused while they waited for class time to begin. Protecting Sandro turned trivial when Wildcard could intercept anyone and anything approaching him; But everything got difficult again if the two of them were separated. Still, at least in here he could probably find some exercise with which to occupy himself, and he wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. The air conditioning alone felt wonderful.

"S'okay. I'm not about to panic if I can't. Though I'm trying to decide what to do if ever confronted by a guard or officer."

"Slam their face into a pillar before they can get a good look at you, and escape through the most immediately available fire exit!" she cooed helpfully.

"Wow, that... didn't take you even a moment's hesitation to prescribe injuring an innocent person," he observed, alarmed and amused.

"Hey, ya know, the moment they have both the authority and willingness to endanger you, my sympathy checks out. I prioritize your safety first!"

"Well as sensible as that might sound to you, it goes against my value system. 'Go unnoticed' and 'do no harm' and all that. It's not some random guard's fault if I fail at ninjaing."

"Hmm. Well, here's to hoping your improv skills turn out as good as mine," she grinned. "Just keep in mind I'm nowhere as capable in a melee as you, and can't afford to get arrested either, so my only reliable means of defending _either_ of us involves putting holes in people. Which is way, way, way more illegal than punching them!"

"Sandro's list of reasons not to get in trouble, item number six hundred and seven: psychotic best friend might end up stabbing random people."

Wildcard shouldered into him with a cackle, and patted his shell in a companionable fashion. "Damn _straight_. Hey! You can probably use the free weights without drawing attention." She pointed to the rack of them. "Show off for me!"

"As the clown demands." He selected one. " _Catch!_ "

"What!? NO-!" Slip-thud. " _Owww!"_

Sandro came up to lean over and grin down at her where she'd been taken clear to the floor by a freshly-lobbed thirty-pound dumbbell. "There are so many things you deserved that for," he told her cheekily.

"The shell I did. What if I'd been hurt?" she protested in a pout, levering the dumbbell off of herself as she tried to sit.

"You would have dodged," he cooed sassily back, and she fell back laughing. "Kids at thirteen shouldn't really weight-train, anyway," he added with a victorious snicker.

"Owwww, you're tellin' me. How heavy is this?" she turned it slowly over. "That's not a statistically insignificant fraction of what _I_ weigh."

A random concerned bystander asked: "Um, are you okay, little girl?"

"'Little-!' I'm fine," she cackled, standing up to put the dumbbell away, and punched Sandro in the arm. "My brother's just an _ass_." Sandro hummed contentedly in agreement.

* * *

Sandro had never once been expected to sit on his tail while _other_ people went through martial arts exercises, at least not without the promise he'd be included soon afterwards.

At first, he was merely curious about Wildcard's classes, teacher, and peers. The room they used at the Recreation Center was no carpeted dojo, but the kids rolled out and cleaned heavy wrestling mats to use as a practice floor and mitigate the risk of injury. Some of them wore a traditional practice _gi_ , while others could only afford sweatpants. Their instructor was a woman and perfectly human which, while not conceptually unusual in any way, was still very different from Sandro's own educators.

But soon enough he felt like an eager puppy tied up on a leash, watching other puppies play. The opening bowing ritual and its, " _Onegai shimasu,_ " were all it took to get him into a kneeling position instead of a cross-legged sit. The warm-up stretches and practice rolls had him wriggling slowly in place, and feeling patently left out. The first time 'Ms. Jane' sent her oldest student flying, and the student recovered with a flip, Sandro crossed his feet to keep himself in place and resigned himself to simply _paying very close attention._

In fact, it was something of a relief when the session ended with, _"D_ ō _mo arigat_ ō _gozaimashta_." Sandro was incredibly eager to get outside and _play_ , and wished that he and Wild could go out at night again and resume training. Blast it! Heh. Wildcard looked almost cute in a _gi._ Sandro was used to training her whilst she wore her evening cat suit, and somehow a Japanese outfit had a peculiar transformative affect on her appearance- Wait, was someone approaching him?

"Anastasia tells me you are her brother?"

 _Gah! Sandro_ turned in shy alarm to see Ms. Jane standing beside him, and he frantically hoped his makeup hadn't just gotten an unintended test run. Had he been keeping his head down? "Th-that's right," he stammered.

"Usually I try to keep my class sizes small so that I have enough time to help each student," Ms. Jane explained. "Were you just here to pick her up? I thought you almost looked like you wanted to join in..."

Apparently his body language had been obvious. "I-I _can't_. I have a-a really bad skin condition." So much for resolving not to panic. At least he probably sounded like any other shy kid with personal appearance problems. "It's genetic." _Yeah, thanks dad._

He could hear a frown in her voice: "But you're interested in martial arts?"

"I-I practice on my own. I'm sorry, but I'm really not comfortable talking about it. Normally I wear a ski-mask if I go outside." Truth, truth, and truth. _Wild, save me._

But salvation turned out to be unnecessary, because Ms. Jane excused herself with a respectful apology, one which Sandro certainly didn't deserve: "I'm sorry to hear that. You can come and watch whenever you like, though."

 _Oh thank Splinter._ He loosed a silent breath when Ms. Jane turned away. A glance upward told him she'd gone to speak with Wildcard. He stood and waited politely for them to finish, and then shuffled forward to meet Wild halfway. Heh. The first and foremost duty of a gi was to absorb sweat, and he probably would have quipped something about deodorant (which was turning into a running gag) if his heart hadn't been hammering so hard.

"Are you okay?" Wildcard hissed, touching his arms reassuringly. "What happened? She just told me her next class isn't for an hour and that the room is empty till then, and then asked if you and I would like to use it...!"

Sandro stared down at her for a moment, blinking vacantly. "' _She_?'" he asked, dismayed. "You mean _your_ _sensei_?"

His diabolical 'sister' grinned. "No I mean my old and decrepit teacher-lady. Try to get me to call anyone an honorific. Just _try_."

And Sandro would be happy to do exactly that (as soon as everyone else cleared the room) because Master Jane was clearly a _saint,_ and deserved the utmost respect everyone, even clowns.

* * *

Evening was still a few hours off when Wildcard and Sandro selected a cozy pizza parlor and ordered three, large-sized, extra-cheesed, and heaping-with-vegetables pizzas.

"We're pretending we're eating healthy," Wildcard teased, when he finally realized noticed he'd never seen her eat meat on a pizza.

"If we're pretending we're eating healthy, we should probably consume drinks other than soda," Sandro reflected even as he went straight for a cupful of Orange Crush. Wildcard was a Doctor Pepper person.

"What do we do instead? Drink Gatorade? I dunno, Gatorade with pizza just sounds wrong somehow." She went to pick up the pizzas, but then made an obvious show of hesitation. A few seconds later, she bent her knees and got an arm around the boxes as if they weighed much more than they did. He blinked at her.

"What was that?"

"I saw myself overbalancing," she said, sounding a little unsteady. "Can you help me carry these, actually? I think I need some Icy-Hot."

That set off warning bells. Sandro extracted the boxes from her. She thoughtfully grabbed a large number of napkins (he'd need them if he hoped to eat pizza with a hood on), and then he gestured that she should lead the way out. He watched her walk and noticed her posture was stiff on one side.

Wild found them makeshift seating out-of-doors and off major thoroughfares, and Sandro settled everything down first before gesturing that she should sit down.

"Let me look at your shoulder," he said.

"You have no idea what a normal shoulder is supposed to look like," she accused playfully.

Sandro shook his head, gently twisted her arm, and instructed: "Try to push against me."

"What?" She hesitated a moment before trying, and the force she could exert was non-existent. Wildcard was usually pretty strong; strong enough that she could give him a good punch in the arm when he deserved one. The alarm on her face confirmed that something was awry, and her silence compounded it.

Sandro coaxed her to sit down with her shoulder facing him, and glanced from side to side, positioning himself in an effort to keep his skin color hidden. He stripped off both gloves, and felt briskly down the back of her neck about her shoulder-blade and collar bone. "I'm sure you are a little nervous about why your arm isn't working, but pinched muscles and nerves tend to be a little obvious when one knows what to look for," he reassured her.

"Is that what it is?" she wondered slowly, and winced at a prod.

"There? Looks like it." He moved his fingers away and worried his thumb into the trigger point to reduce tension. "I think I know what to do, since it's still fresh. Lay your elbow on top of my arm. I'm just going to pull your whole shoulder cradle up a bit, to stretch it. Later, you should still take some ibuprofen and get an icepack on it."

Wildcard did as he instructed. "You've done this before?"

"Well, it's not like any of us can see a chiropractor, now is it?" He smirked. "I'll be careful. More careful than when I was planting you into a training mat, at least. Uh..." He recoiled, struck by a quiet uncertainty, "Do I have to reach under the back of your shirt to actually grasp the shoulder blade...?"

"Why, Sandro! Be my guest! Even if I _had_ boobs, I'd have never mistaken you for the ungentlemanly type!" Wildcard exclaimed, turning a manic grin his way. "But for your comfort, I do come equipped with a previously unnecessary sports bra! That probably supplies an extra layer of defense between yourself and girl cooties, don't you think?"

Sandro's face tightened into an irritable scowl. And if the heat was any indication, he'd probably turned a dark burgundy. "Was that absolutely necessary?" he demanded of this reprehensible creature with whom he'd been saddled.

"Of course! Now you can be mad instead of embarrassed," she agreed, still grinning like a madwoman. "What are you going to do to get back at me? Break my other arm?" Her grin smoothed out a bit. "I think I do need your help."

"You need someone to dangle you off a bridge for a few hours," he muttered, pinching a bit of silky polyester and nylon T-shirt between his fingers to test its texture. Then he wrapped his fingers about her shoulder. He'd just make sure not to let his hold slip. "Breath in, then out, and then hold it that way for a few seconds." She obeyed the instruction, and he squeezed and lifted.

 _CRACK-le._

" _Wow_ ," she squeaked as he released. "Wow. That was loud. Ah."

He lifted her arm and moved it about a bit more brusquely than he ought to have, especially as she still might have been in pain. Fortunately it looked like that one little adjustment had resolved the bulk of the problem. She was still bruised, of course, and really did need a ice pack. Hnh. Even so, he couldn't help but feel angry as he picked up his gloves and slipped them back on.

"Sandro? Thanks. Thank you."

 _No_. He turned away and put a few inches between them both. "Why does this keep coming up?" he rebuked more than asked.

She raised a brow. "Why does _what_ keep coming up?"

Great, he was blushing again. " _Clothing!_ Dress-up! Everythin'!"

"Uh, well... We're teenagers, Sandro. I think we're supposed to be clumsily negotiating gendered topics at this age," she informed him academically. "The only difference between you and I is that you try to be dignified, while I blunder headlong through and resolve to laugh no matter how ridiculous it gets! Not dissimilar from different approaches to removing a Band-Aid!"

"Ya intentionally make everythin' _awkward_!" he spat.

"Aw, don't be like that," she complained. "Of course I do! And I try to make awkward things enormously funny for like fifteen seconds, so they're less awkward afterwards! But if you won't forgive me, what am I supposed to do? Just leave you there feeling confused about a shirt? There's nothing so exciting about my clothing."

Sandro felt steamed and didn't immediately answer as he finished pulling his gloves on and draped his forearms over his thighs. He tried to quietly cool off, hoping she'd take the hint.

Wildcard did, and was silent for a long time.

"... I'm sorry," she said at last, sounding disheartened. "Just cause I resolve my own confusing feelings a certain way, doesn't make it appropriate for me to drag you along. You're a lot more reserved than I am, and maybe I shouldn't tease you so horribly even if your facial expressions are hilarious. Ya know, most of the time, I don't even feel like a girl. I don't _like_ other girls, I don't _think_ like a girl, I don't look much like a girl, and sometimes it feels like puberty plans to give me a miss. So I just... make fun of it all instead."

Sandro looked over at her. Then he heaved a long, slow, exhale. After a moment, he scooted closer again. "I like when you tease me," he begrudgingly admitted, slipping an arm about both her shoulders and pulling her to his side. She perked back up and sidled into him. "Just... can you restrain yourself when I don't have the recourse of _decking ya for it_?"

A smirking grin slowly tugged back over her face and brightened her eyes again. "Well," she decided, "that might be fair. Speaking of my shoulder, can I confess something?"

He frowned warily. "Maybe?"

"It actually really bothered me how fast you picked up the Aikido moves. I've been doing this for months and practicing arduously every other day, and you sat there and watched for just an hour and a half. But at the end, you'd understood more and learned faster than I had, and could still easily beat and correct me."

Sandro tilted his head to the side. "Why would that bother you? I've been a practitioner of a similar martial art since I've been old enough to _stand_."

She gave a hesitant shrug. "I guess I was jealous...? You made it look so easy. So I felt... incompetent. Stupid. I'm used to being good at the things I enjoy."

Sandro shook his head. "You're strong and athletic for your size, but hand-to-hand fighting is still new territory for you. You shouldn't feel like your progress has been stymied in any way, just because of me. Look, Wild, you played ice-hockey, right? Do you want to know how incompetent I would look if we both suddenly took up figure-skating, or rollerblading, or skate-boarding, or anything else? I could affect not to be knocked over owed to a good sense of balance... but that would be it."

" _Ooh_. Things we should do: get Sandro into figure skating. Figure skaters wear leotards!"

He grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked sharply.

"Oww-oww! Hehehhahahah! Ow-ow, yes, you've got me!" she flailed at his deltoid and shell. "Uncle! How do I tap out!?"

This time, Sandro smirked tolerantly instead of scowling at her. He released her hair and then tousled it forgivingly. She giggled. It felt like something important had been resolved, and that maybe they could tease, argue, and yell at one another more safely, with less risk of taking it personally.

"Hey, our pizza is going to get cold," Sandro realized.

"Oh dear! That would be terrible!" She reached out for the boxes. "Hot cheese is the best cheese!"

He took his box thankfully. "Hey, after we're done eating, we're hitting a drug mart for some basic first aid supplies... You need an ice pack, or that shoulder's just going to stiffen right back up again." He nudged her. "I'm sorry I hurt you, by the way. During practice."

"Well I got back at you, now didn't I?" she reminded him deviously. "And I didn't even have to resort to guilt-tripping!"

Hmm. "Touché."

"So we're good! Hey, hey, head down, silly."

* * *

[Author's Note] Wild! You take that back about Mary-Jane Parker! You take it back right now! Oh well, sorry Sandro, there'll only be one person Wild ever calls Sensei and she hasn't met them yet ;)


	24. Diurnal Adventures

"How'd it hold up?" Sandro asked, staying alert for signs of movement. Had they both been boys or both been girls, they'd have been able to use a public bathroom to clean off make up; as it was, they had to use an alley.

"Surprisingly well. There are a couple places your skin is more scale-like where the stuff thinned out or caked up wrong," Wildcard reported. "Might be able to fix it with a base coat of liquid latex. Or just try to pass it off as a skin disorder."

"Doesn't have to be an every day thing. Though," he glanced at the sponge she was using to remove pigment, "even just the foundation might help." Sandro had a habit of using precise terminology, which appeared to be why he so easily memorized 'foundation.' She wondered about how close he was to Donatello.

"Turns you from greenish to convincingly pinkish," she agreed about the makeup, still guiltily enjoying these excuses to touch his face.

Likewise, Sandro successfully concealed from her that it was nice to be doted on. "Won't get mistaken for a space alien on just a glance," he said instead.

Wildcard snorted a giggle. "You poor thing. I still think about how you said those ladies screamed at the sight of you as a baby. Breaks my heart; You must have been so _cute_ and distraught...! There you go. The lighting here is bad, so make sure you take a shower and consult a mirror even after you get home."

"Of course, doctor."

Wildcard thought had a marvelous deadpan; She stuck out her tongue and winked. "My dad'll be glad to hear I want to be tutored in practical effects and face artistry! It'll give us a project. He's the creative genius, you must realize, not me."

"Oh, I dunno, you seem plenty 'creative' to me." He cuffed her gently over the head, "See you tomorrow, Wild. If nothing happens... ya know."

She patted his shell as one would pat a normal kid's back. "Don't jinx it, stupid! See you!"

* * *

"Dad," Wildcard complained of Tween-aged Disney programming whilst she thumbed through television channels, "this is not remotely like what teenagerdom is actually like."

"No...!" he spun about to face her with a gasp. "Really...? The TV _lies_ to us!?"

"But it sometimes _does_ feel this ridiculous," she continued exasperatedly. "It's not this _stupid_ , but the exaggerated emotions and triggers really are a thing, and a person might have three life-changing conversations in a single day. No wonder we're all moody!"

"Ha! If it comforts you to hear," her father laughed, joining her on the couch over handfuls of trail mix, "I think you're doing rather well at mine-sweeping."

"If only ninety percent of the time," she qualified.

"Ninety-nine," he praised affectionately. "Is that an ice pack?" He set his trail mix bowl to the side and leaned over to have a look at her shoulder. "Aww. Come here, squirt." She leaned forward and then gratefully slumped over his back as he rubbed her shoulder and arm and back. He picked her arm up by the elbow and gently stretched it about.

Wildcard sighed, relieved. "Any adult Ninjas been snooping about...?" she decided to ask.

"Might be hard to tell," he reflected. "Though I don't expect giant Turtle ninjas to give me too much more trouble than giant Bat ninjas, I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt and keep my head down."

"Oh. Sandro and I are planning our activities in an effort to keep them from finding the house."

"Hmm." It didn't sound like Joker thought this was a good idea. "Remember, Ana: People rarely see what they don't expect. So you're not trying to hide a big secret... You're plain, knowing you have nothing to hide. No one in this house is with the Foot Clan—or attempting to bring about an extra-dimensional alien invasion—and that's the only 'evil' they're looking for."

"Even if you go out at night and stuff?"

"Lots of peoples' fathers go out at night to do unsavory things," he reminded her, gently easing tension along the vertebrae of her neck. "Drug trades. Gambling. The visitation of Red Light districts. Cock fights. Street boxing. See, Ana, hiding in plain sight doesn't involve much actual _hiding_ ; one instead makes it so the questions never come up, conveniently misleading answers are implied, and people aren't comfortable in prodding for more. One uses the magic of _assumptions_."

"But I'd hate painting you in a bad light..."

He laughed, settled down her hurt arm to let it rest, and then pet over the whole of her back. "Don't worry about me for now, squirt. Worry about you. Let me handle the grown-ups if it comes to that, and otherwise just play the wacky little saint which you are. Hmm?"

* * *

" _Sanndrrooo_!" Wildcard greeted in nasal whine as he climbed out of the manhole, and she could see him roll his eyes prematurely. "Do you know how to _fix_ things?"

"That's a vague question," her best friend informed her as he got the cover back in place. "What sort of things?"

"Garbage!" she explained with great enthusiasm, drawing out a skateboard from behind her back and tossing it to him. He caught it curiously, and turned it about to see the orange-painted underbelly was faded and chipped, and the whole board had a loose truck and was missing a wheel. "This was abandoned at the skate park! I hunted around and managed to find the wheel parts, I think."

"We need a socket wrench and a nut," Sandro decided after cursory inspection. "Well, we have _a_ nut, but we need another one for the axle." He glanced at her. "I guess walking into a Home Depot isn't half as difficult as I once would have conceived it to be. Is that where we're going today? The skate park?"

"It's the only place a heavily hooded person can play around climbing things and exercising in the middle of the day and not set off warning bells," she grinned. "I brought a hoodie to match."

An hour later featured Sandro presenting Wildcard with her newly mended board near the top of a half-pipe, and she wasted no time in setting it down and clambering on top of it. "Have you ever done this before?" he inquired.

"Nope," she said, but managed to jump the board a few degrees to the side without falling off of it. "Nope, nope, nope! But I've _watched_ for years!" She slid her balance back and forward, rocking the board a few inches in each direction. "Hmm-hmm-hmm!"

A nearby guy said: "That's pretty good for a girl," as if that was supposed to be encouraging.

"For a _girl_!?" Sandro watched Wildcard stiffen incredulously. Then she kicked the ground and brought her board up to the edge of the half-pipe. "I'll show you what's 'pretty good!'" she growled, and looked just about to make the plunge when common sense apparently came back to her and she said, "Um, or, maybe I should practice on flat ground fi-NO!" Being the good friend he was, Sandro couldn't let her back down after such a display of bravado, and naturally had to push her. She flew away with a shriek of, "Scrrewww youuu!"

Sandro crossed his arms over his chest and watched as she reached the other side of the half-pipe and floundered up securely onto the side of it, grabbing the skateboard mid-motion and hugging it to herself. She spun about to glare at him with wide-eyes and a thin mouth. He grinned. "Scared?" he taunted.

She puffed herself up. Then she set the board back down on the edge, and stomped onto it, and went flying back down the other side of the pipe. When she hit his side, she crouched and grabbed onto the edge of the board, and hit her palm into the top of the halfpipe, and did a partial handstand right in front of him. "BOOYAKASHA!" she announced, before somehow actually managing to get the board back down as she flew shakily back down the pipe. She whooped, and continued practicing going back and forward several times.

The boy who had accidentally incited all this asked: "This is seriously her first time on a board?"

"Yup," Sandro agreed, jealous but content, as a maniac squealed 'THIS IS AWESOME!' from the other side of the pipe. "Upsetting, isn't it?"

Wildcard shouted to him. "I'm gonna flip!" He raised a brow. "And fall!" she added. "But still flip! WOOHOO!"

Crash, thud, skid. Sandro leaned over to get a look and waited patiently for her verdict.

"I regret NOOTTTHINNNG!" she howled victoriously, and then fell back laughing on the half-pipe and kicking her thoroughly scraped legs in the air.

Sandro went to drag her away so that other kids could use the half-pipe again. He spent the next fifteen minutes bandaging up her elbows and knees and suggesting they might want to carry around ice packs more routinely if this was going to be a pattern for them. Her shoulder, however, didn't look to be troubling her.

* * *

"I can't believe I'm on an ice rink," Sandro protested, tottering awkwardly along the perimeter like a child just learning to walk.

"It's the air conditioning," Wildcard moaned delightedly, flying past him with her arms spread out wide. "We were seduced inside by the air conditioning!"

"If I fall and lose my hood..." Wildcard could heard just the slightest edge of what might _possibly_ be a North Jersey accent creeping up in his voice. She'd rarely heard him fall into it before, and it made her want to mimic it. Valiantly, she refrained from such merciless teasing so that she might reassure him instead!

"Just hold onto the railing until you're comfortable, silly, you'll be fine! Besides, see all those girls twirling about near the center? I haven't worn normal skates since I first started learning, and hockey skates aren't any good for fancy shenanigans. So you'll get to watch me continuously nearly-fall and nearly-wipe-out as I try to figure out how to spin and stuff."

He was just trying to _stand_ and nearly wiped out, and was left running in place for a second in an effort to right himself. He found out he could use the spike at the toe of the shoe to get some traction, and sighed in relief when he finally got both feet back under him. She snickered at him. "Why do you _want_ to know how to _spin_?" he demanded after a moment, because conversation was detracting attention from his gracelessness.

"So that I can kill people with blades on my feet, duh."

"Ya know, I feel moronic for not anticipatin' that answer," he grumbled, shakily pushing himself upright again. "Yer gonna knock me over th' second I figure this out, ain't ya?"

"Absolutely. But not _before_ , as there's no sport in it. I can't risk damaging your confidence and sending you stomping off in a huff before you've started to enjoy yourself, now can I?"

He grabbed firmly to the rail to steady himself and reached out to the space she was occupying, but she ducked under his arm and spun about in a circle.

"Too slow!" she called. "I'll push you over once you can chase me!"

Two hours later he was treated to the irony that he was about to ice a bruised knee which had occurred because he'd fallen _on ice_. Wildcard knelt in front of him, grinning as she cracked the pack and leaned over to apply it to the injury. He hissed—a little too loudly at that—and she glanced at him with a grin that said _watch it turtle_ without having to speak a word. He huffed.

"That was unexpectedly painful," he groaned, because pretty white ice and nimble skaters made it deceptive just how hard the ground was, and he'd gone down with a hard clatter. There were some disadvantages to having an enormous shell, and one of them was how much it _weighed_.

"I think we need knee and elbow pads," she told him conspiratorially, and his half-scowl made it clear they were both thinking about cartoon ninja turtles. "They've got some food here. French-fries, nachos, and a burger sound good?"

"Sounds wonderful." But when she came back and gave him his soda, and he took a sip, he nearly spit it out again and coughed in surprise. "What did you-!?"

"They had a drink dispenser with twenty different kinds!" she exclaimed, waggling her arms in horror. "I couldn't help myself, I put a squirt of each kind in! I know Orange Crush doesn't go with Root Beer! I KNOW! I'm sorry, I have to drink the same thing! This hasn't happened since early childhood! I DON'T KNOW WHATS WRONG WITH ME...!" He groaned and leaned back into her, and laughed.

* * *

Anastasia was finishing up some wonderful lasagna her father had left out for her dinner. "But what if I end up meeting them one day?" she abruptly blurt out. "What if I want them to _like_ me?"

"Whom is this 'them' we are speaking of?" Her father asked from the couch. "The extended turtle family?" He took a thoughtful breath in through his nose. "Then you best be charming," he warned. "Plan gingerly, play hard. Make sure you figure out who was the primary caregiver; they will likely be the most suspicious of you. You cannot trust other people the way you've decided to trust Sandro himself. No matter how badly you might wish for things like acceptance. "

That was true. Somberly, she recalled how Sandro had successfully guessed her father's identity. "Was that a mistake?" she asked, though not frightened of Sandro. Sometimes she was hit by a haunting hysteria that she'd somehow misinterpreted reality, and that one day she'd wake up to find that her extremely important friendship had been imaginary. "I wanted to be honest with him so badly. Did I rush it?"

"Can you not tell what loyalty looks like?" her father shot her a bewildered glance over his newspaper. "The boy's already wrapped about your finger, and you've barely even had to work at it. He's lonely, and seeing you demonstrate that you are also lonely cements his attachment to you. Even your honesty rewards him for needing you, positively reinforcing bonding behavior. Come on squirt, this is psychology 101, you know this stuff. You do it every day to keep your social relationships firmly under your own control. Between your charisma and foresight, I'm not sure what you're worried about."

Wildcard quietly wondered if she and father had ever discussed social relationships aloud before. No. Apparently not, or she'd have remembered this cynical underpinning. "I feel like you just described how you feel about Harley, and not me and Sandro," she said, and was surprised to find her voice somewhat argumentative or accusatory.

Her father leaned back and settled down his newspaper, and seemed to reflect upon the whole of the conversation much deeper than previously. "Because it sounded manipulative? Anastasia, conversations are manipulative; all conversations are manipulative. You want to get hung up on labeling yourself for being skilled and self-aware? Let me ask you this: You care about and respect the boy, don't you? Enough that you would let him retain control of what he thinks and feels?"

"Yeah. Which is probably for the best, because I think if given time to assemble his argument, Sandro is almost always right about everything."

Joker smiled thinly. "Well that's more than we can say about my feelings for doll-face," he remarked. "But, that said: the skills one requires to get a mob thug to love you long enough to swallow dynamite for you... are not _conceptually_ dissimilar from the ones which let you navigate conversational hazards with a friend's curious super-parents. There's just—presumably—more good feeling behind the latter." He went back to his newspaper.

"Okkaayy... So..." Wildcard got up and came over to lean against the back of the couch, and dipped her hands into her father's hair to rub his scalp and temples. "I don't know why, but somebody's clearly a little bitter and melancholy."

Her father hesitated, thrown off by her. Then he closed his eyes, and leaned back into her, and sighed heavily. "Perhaps I am ill-equipped to be giving advice on this topic," he admitted. "I will watch more _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ and come back to you with an analysis of my findings."

Wildcard collapsed into the couch and his shoulder, felled by laughter so hard it hurt. Her father grinned to himself and reached up to run his fingers through her hair and hug her close.

"There are whole volumes of hilarious conversations I would have missed out on if not for you," he hummed into her her temple. "Do what you can, as best as you can; and, as you learn, I'll be here to help you deal with the mistakes. I... I realize how much you care about Sandro, and I'm you've never really gotten a chance to have a friend like him before. I will not make us move again unless there is an immediate and real threat." She put her hand in his, and squeezed thankfully.

* * *

They had eaten tacos for lunch and were doing homework in the park. Sandro was laying down on their picnic blanket over some notes and a math textbook. She had bought them a parasol to combat some of the intense summer heat. Emboldened by the cover it gave them, Sandro rolled over comfortably onto his back to continue reading. He used her as a bit of a headrest. Wildcard set beside him, reading through her now highlighter-covered copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_. They had been hard at work for over an hour. The situation was ripe for...

... _an incident...!_

Quietly, strategically, Wildcard stretched her legs out just a little and leaned forward, resting her book on her knees.

 _Pffft!_

Sandro shoved himself up lightning fast and twisted about to stare at her.

Wildcard tried to affect complete and utter sainthood, but the grin which lit up her face from side to side was surely telling. Woohoo! Those tacos! That had been _ripe_!

He lunged and she threw her book into the air with a squeal, lunging to her feet. His hands missed her as she twisted up to a squat, and then she'd bolted out of his reach all-together and he was staggering to his feet behind her.

 _"YER DEAD MEAT WHEN I CATCH YA!"_ he roared after her, loud in a way Sandro was _never_ loud.

"If you catch me!" she shrieked the correction back to him in hysteric glee, and knew she had to run for her life because he was just _inches_ behind her and almost every conceivable future ended in an inescapable and painful headlock. Or crashing into a- eek! She vaulted a poodle, and dodged a baby carriage, and that bought her precious time to climb up into a tree before Sandro could get hold of her.

That didn't stop him from getting hold of her, though. He just climbed up right after her.

"Aeei! NOT THE FACE!" she squealed, which startled him just long enough that she managed to extract a glitter grenade and throw it into his face. BAM. Glitter and confetti, everywhere! She leaped out of the tree, went rolling, and got up to her feet and back to a run before he could follow.

"I AM GONNA HIT YA SO HARD YER ANCESTORS WILL FEEL IT!" a turtle bellowed, and when she shouted back to taunt him she found herself copying his sudden Jersey twang.

* * *

 _P-ting!_ "What the f-!?" Crash-thud, rumble!

"Daaad!" he heard Anastasia complain. "There's a _burglar_ in the kitchen again."

"I was _wondering_ why I heard metal ricochet off metal," Mr. Hamilton remarked as he came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel and still drying off his hair. He peered into the kitchen, where Anastasia was sitting on top of a man in a black hoodie, one arm pinned behind him and her switchblade so tight against his neck it was drawing blood. One of his hands was also lacerated, and a handgun had gone sliding many meters away. "Well, we did clean up the house after your blurting incident so... perhaps we should call the police?"

"I think that's nicer of you than dumping his body in the river," Anastasia admitted. "Besides, we have like zero experience calling the police for things police are supposed to be called for. This will be a new experience for both of us!"

"Who the fuck are you people!?" the burglar shouted.

"Probably your neighbors," Anastasia reflected. "I read a statistic about burglaries in the area and the most likely perpetrators, and it was really depressing and made me lose a lot of faith in my community. Just sayin."

"Oh, don't say that," Mr. Hamilton protested as he confiscated the gun. "The nice lady who moved in next door invited everyone on the block to a housewarming party, and brought over a platter of _calzones_. I didn't catch her name, of course, but the unexpected sharing of food did leave an impression and so I have endeavored to learn it should ever we speak again."

The burglar tried to use her apparent distraction to escape the pin. He ended up crying out in pain instead as she leaned down into him: "Fuck!" and so she poked him in the jawline once with the tip of her knife to remind him that he was in mortal danger if he kept moving.

"Calzones...?" Anastasia asked slowly, and her stomach gave an audible growl. "Did... did you eat _all_ of them...?"

"Of course not, I put the rest in the oven to stay warm until you got here. What sort of horrible person do you think I am? Also it would negatively impact my figure; I can't eat as much as you, squirt, I have a post-thirties metabolism."

"Can you call the police?" the burglar requested meekly.

"Oh. Right," Mr. Hamilton recalled the plan. "Hold on, let me put on some pants first. Hmmmnnhmmmn," he walked off, humming to himself.

* * *

[Author's Note] Remember kids, if you're going to punch your best friend, always make sure you have ice packs and snuggles. XD


	25. The Fate of the Universe

[Author's Note] FINALLY. TURTLES. BROTHERHOOD. Been waiting for this...!

* * *

"Okay, okay Mikey, you gotta _tell_ him," whispered a turtle to himself. "Just blurt it out, yo."

But Michelangelo only bounced in place outside of Donatello's lab, shaking jitters and trying to get pumped past the point of nervousness.

"Just say: Donnie, there's something I gotta tell you about Sandro! Yeah. That's all it'll take!" But knowing that suddenly horrified him. Michelangelo paused, hesitated, and then turned away and grabbed at his face and groaned. "He's gonna freak out, he's gonna so freak out, what do I do, how do I do this...?!"

Michelangelo slapped himself. "Come on, Mikey, what would Leo do?" He'd freak out, Mikey, just like anyone but you. "No, he'd totally stay all cool, and stuff, and say things in a level tone of voice." _O Rly?_ Well then why don't you tell him first before Donnie? "I can't do that, he'd freak out." Even Mikey could see this was going in circles. He lifted his hands as if visualizing a football goal.

"Look, just _tell Donnie what is up_ , Mikey. Okay? Only maybe don't just _blurt_ it out. Tell him, uh, slowly and carefully, the way Donnie likes to hear difficult things." Michelangelo mentally pictured himself standing before Donatello, but their imaginary conversation immediately devolved into a lightning-paced spew of random inconsequential details. "Shell."

There was more at stake than family drama. It had taken Le Tiny Chick for Mikey to finally realize he'd never heard Sandro yell before. Michelangelo had been rooted in place on that rooftop, gaping and looking rapidly between the children. With awestruck _delight,_ a realization had dawned: There was a Tiny Raphael in that boy after all.

Michelangelo had then watched Sandro like a hawk from a safe distance (hello borrowing Donnie's binoculars without asking!), and observed a hefty amount of (wait, had he returned those or lost them somewhere?) sneaking into places they weren't allowed to go, reading in the park, skateboarding, pranking, mischief making, and honest-to-god snuggling.

"Was a-d'awww-rable," Mikey complained miserably into his hands, feeling utterly _beleaguered_ (he should probably find those binoculars before Donnie asked). For if he screwed up the delivery of this news, Michelangelo would fail the universe in it's entirety. _You hear that Mikey!? The fate of the universe rests on your shoulders!_ Someone's universe, anyway.

But if Michelangelo put Sandro on the spot in front of Donatello and tried to get him to tell the truth, it would be like freakin' _dominoes_ , man! Sandro would shut down and bottle up (and freak Mikey the hell out, because that was unnatural, and (by the way) someone needed to eventually say so out loud), and of course then there was nothing that freaked Donatello out more than lack of information, and if Donatello called in Leonardo for advice, Leo would freak out about 'safety,' and if Leo's sibling loyalty made him tell Raphael, well, _Raphael would kill everybody_. Probably citing child neglect. Only he'd kill Sandro most of all.

"Come _on_ Mikey!" Michelangelo hopped in place. "Just say something. Donnie'll understand. Donnie always gets Sandro best." Mikey took several deep breaths. "Just turn the corner into the lab and blurt it out. On the count of three. One... Two... ... Two and a half." He was inching farther away from the door, not closer. "Two and three-quarters... Oh _shell_ , DO IT, this is for Lil Bro!" He charged towards the lab door–

–only to skid to a halt as the door was thrown open and he was confronted by an exasperated Donatello! Michelangelo fell dumbly silent and blinked vacantly at his older/taller brother, who was surrounded by notes and flicking agitatedly over a mobile tablet. Don was exiting the room, it seemed, and glanced up _just_ before he might have walked straight into Mikey.

"Oh, there you are!" the older brother hissed exasperatedly, and by the tone of voice he wasn't _mad at Mikey_ so much as at an upsetting mystery. "I'm glad you're here. I need to talk to you: I'm convinced Sandro is up to something dangerous."

Michelangelo went ramrod straight and smiled without opening his beak. "O-oh? You don't say...?" he managed. _Sweatdrop._ "What makes you think that?"

"What doesn't make me think that!?" Donatello started pacing. "The unusual amount of minutes and texts taken up by his phone plan, wildly altering sleeping hours, noticeable decrease in requests to go out with us on patrol, decrease in regular training hours, reduction in gaming hours logged on his Xbox, not to mention he's suddenly developed an interest in cult classic movies and anime! There are forty-seven unexplained episodes on our Netflix recently watched list, along with titles like _The Sound of Music_ and _Little Shop of Horrors—_ I was convinced the only person in this house who was ever going to watch _Attack on Titan_ was _me_ , or I wouldn't have watched it alone!" He shuddered and added in a small voice: "I could have used the emotional backup."

"Um... Maybe it's puberty?" Michelangelo offered helpfully as his brain internally repeated: _Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit._

"That turns boys into _pigs_ , Mikey! You cook nearly as often as I do, haven't you noticed he's skipping whole meals and leaving others merely _stirred_!? His loss in appetite is so large its been directly observable as a 9.5% dip in our grocery bills! I've calculated his rate of calorie intake and projected the results over a three month period, and I can guarantee with a 1.54% margin of error that he shouldn't even be able to maintain his current body weight! And right now he's out of the house—again!—and either he's out of range of my signal repeater—against the rules!—or he's deliberately deactivated his phone GPS—also very much against the rules!"

 _Oh sweet Splinter in heaven, I'm sorry big brother_. Watching Mother-Hen-Donatello fluttering about like this, conducting analyses of every number available to him in an effort to understand the motivations of 'his' wayward child, made Michelangelo feel absolutely rotten. Plus, he knew it was only a matter of time before Donnie pulled out the more tech-heavy solutions to otherwise mundane problems, and those would probably cause unnecessary drama.

Much more calmly than he thought he'd be able to, Michelangelo confessed: "I know where he is."

Donatello turned a quick, sharp glare on him from the corner of his eye. "Had a feeling you might." There was honestly a little bit of cobra in Donatello sometimes. Went well with the Mother Hen; Probably there for counterbalance. "Had a feeling you covered for him during the hurricane, too."

"Look," Michelangelo pleaded, "the little guy doesn't have three brothers to make mischief with him, Donster, I gotta help him out sometimes, keep his secrets, redirect attention from his slip-ups...! Just, uh, not this time. This time _you_ really need to know."

Donatello straightened up and slowly settled his things down. "Is he doing something dangerous?" Don asked seriously, but without venom.

"No- Yea- uh, Mayb- _Okay, look._ Don't tell Raph. Or Leo. Or April. Or Casey. Or anyone. You gotta promise, Donnie, okay?"

"I'm not making that kind of promise," Donatello retorted as if the notion were absurd, which Michelangelo thought was unfair. Donatello liked to resort to the defense of 'I tell April everything,' but that wasn't true when it was _Donatello_ who felt Sandro needed something to go unsaid. Well... well okay, maybe that _would_ help Sandro now, but then Michelangelo still had to get Donatello on Team-Le-Tiny-Chick. Donatello's sharp, "What _is_ he doing, Mikey?" brought Michelangelo back to the present.

"Nothing _bad_ , exactly!" Michelangelo hastened to describe. "Just, uh, definitely _different_..."

"' _Different_?'" Donatello's mind clearly went away to a range of terrible places, if his glazed eyes and traumatized grimace were any indication.

Michelangelo slumped his shoulders. "Okay, I totally get how a bad joke just happened owed to my poor word choice; But, seriously bro, you need to start making an _actual concerted effort_ to avoid the weird parts of the internet. Cause I _so_ don't use the word 'different' whatever way you just heard it. Like, _ever_. I was talking more like the hot-fudge-on-pizza kind of different."

Donatello came awake with a rapid shake of the head and a blink. "Oh." He cleared his throat and gave a slight blush and an apologetic tilt of his head to admit that, yes, his head had gone to some horrible, battle-scarred place, but fortunately he was back now. "Yeah, my bad."

"Look," Mikey reanimated, "what I was _trying_ to tell you—what I came here to tell you—is he's, um, he's topside."

"Topside!?" Donatello all but shrieked, mouth dragging low in a turtle's best emulation of an incredulous sneer (curse you lack of lips!) "Now!? It's already day outside!"

"Whoa-whoa-!" Michelangelo forestalled, raising his palms out to stop his brother from charging straight out the front door. "I been spying on him and he's got the basic art of it down! If we don't freak out we won't give him away, so it's not an emergency just yet!" Donatello looked to him incredulously. "But look, you _really, really_ gotta see it to-"

Donatello all but leaped on him like a jaguar, fingers digging into his arms. "Where _is_ he!?" the older turtle cut Mikey off with a hiss, and Michelangelo remembered Donatello could be a pretty terrifying 'parent' sometimes. "Coordinates! Now! _Specifically_ , Mikey!"

Michelangelo braced himself, lifted both hands, and set them on his older brother's shoulders. "Bro? I'm not telling you _anything_ until you calm down. Last thing Sandro needs is you having a shrieky fit and blowing _everyone's_ cover while topside midday."

Purple Turtle's fingers tightened against his shell, curling angrily. Donatello set his mouth in a line, nostrils flaring, but then lowered his head and and took a long deep breath.

Michelangelo relaxed a bit and rubbed the older turtle's shoulders reassuringly. "Thanks bro, we all need you with a clear head."

"Seriously," Donnie looked up at Michelangelo, "seriously, Mike. Where is our Sandro?"

"Well that's kinda the weird part," Michelangelo admitted, dropping both arms to give a heavy shrug. "You gotta see it for yourself. He's at the park. Lincoln park."

Donatello straightened in disbelief. "In broad daylight?" he wondered aloud. "Why the _park_?" Parks didn't scream youthful rebellion. "Why the shell would he-?"

"Man bro, I don't quite get it either and I need your help figuring out what to do. But first you gotta see it for yourself. Uh, though we need disguises... and the old trench-coat-backpack-hat look's gonna be crazy weird on twinned giants. Not to mention he'll see us coming from a mile away, and you won't get to observe him in his natural habitat. We need something he's never seen before, yo."

Donatello snorted. "I've had something prepared for awhile," he turned and crossed the lab to find a specific crate. "Just, uh, keep an open mind and try not to get any traumatic flashbacks to _Cowabunga Carl_."

Michelangelo shrank back in a cringe, just like a 60's cartoon who had been confronted by a mouse (one leg in the air and everything!) _So many screaming children...! So much miniature violence...!_ Working as a costumed entertainer at birthday parties to help support the family once had been _rough_ , depressed clowns were proof! He warily eyed the crate Donnie was fishing in. But when Donatello extracted first one, then another, giant fake heads, the theme was pleasantly unexpected. Michelangelo slowly uncoiled. _Oh!_

"Exactly what are your comfort levels at right now?" Donatello asked anyway, because he was a good brother like that.

Michelangelo pointed and demanded, "Dibs. I get to be Mario. _I called it._ "

Don shuttered his eyes at him. "Michelangelo, when have we _ever_ played a single game of Super Mario Brothers, on any platform, for any reason, where I have not immediately agreed to be Luigi for you?"

It was true. Donatello really was the best brother ever sometimes.

* * *

"This is bad, this is bad, this is bad. By my calculations, there are fifty-seven people on this plaza alone-"

"Man, there's barely _anyone_ here," Michelangelo hissed back with a grin. "You should see it on the weekends."

"And that was the _seventh_ dog to bark at me!"

"Donster, you smell of bleach, animal, an omnipresent fearful paranoia, and hospital supplies. That's like the smell recipe for 'Inside a Vet's Office,' yo!"

Purple turtle was not amused: "Well taking care of our household certainly feels like working with _animals_ some days! How are you so calm!?"

"Re _lax_ bro, I totally trust in the integrity of the costume you bought for me yourself." Donatello heaved a heavy sigh. "The mini fan was _seriously_ thoughtful bro. Though maybe you need walkie-talkies if you want to talk to the whole time, heh."

They had to stop to pose for another picture with two small children and an enthusiastic aunt. Mario/Mikey, of course, got everyone's hugs.

"They're less rabid in small, self-selected groups," Donatello remarked afterwards.

"This is _sooo_ much better bro," Michelangelo pretended to sob. "The amount of hugs I've gotten since we've been up here is seriously tempting me into doing this on a regular basis, for free." Donatello glared at him. "Whaaat? I can count the amount of hugs I've gotten from you over the last year on one hand." Michelangelo just had to keep him cooled down with banter a short while longer. They were almost there.

Donatello made an irritated and incredulous noise, "You hug me _daily_ ," he groused, "and for no reason at all!"

"Duuude, I said 'get from,' not 'give to.' Donster you are like hugging a tree. A tree who sighs at me."

"Dammit Mikey, Focus! Okay? Look, memo made: Hug Michelangelo several times at randomly selected intervals, _after_ we get through this alive!"

"Awww. Gonna hold you to-Hey! Oh, oh, hey, hey, hey, I see them!" He quickly ushered Donatello to the side so they could spy without being obvious.

" _Them_?" Donatello hissed, alarmed. "Mikey, what ' _them_ '?"

"See the coat? Look! Look, look, look!" And Donatello did look.

A boy and a girl crouched over a mostly-naked skateboard with a battery-operated hairdryer, box cutter, and long curls of frayed and discarded grip tape beside them. They sat there with backpacks, a stack of books, two tonfa, a small toolbox, and a stack of Subway Sandwiches; and their picnic blanket and parasol suggested they intended to camp in place for awhile.

Sandro—it had to be Sandro by the coat, though he was keeping the hood very low—was buffing the edges of the board and getting the remaining adhesive off, as the girl sat against him and pulled up the edge of a new page of grip-tape. Sandro waved her over, and together the two of them lined up the tape to the board. Sandro lifted up a heavy book—a Trigonometry textbook—and pressed the binding into the grip tape to help ensure a smooth and bubble-free application. The tape went on flawlessly, and then he lifted up the board and checked the nuts with a socket wrench.

Sandro turned and outright tossed the board to the girl as she stood, but she snatched it out of the air and quickly dashed over to the sidewalk and tossed it down. She leapt onto it, and leaned back so the nose of it stuck up in the air, and then proceeded to jump the board about it in a circle on one set of wheels. She gave a victorious whoop as Sandro stood up and came over to observe. The underbelly of the board was flame orange.

Sandro tapped her shoulder. A random pedestrian stopped to tell her that skateboarding was forbidden in this part of the park. Sandro stood back with his head down. The girl kicked the board up to grab hold of it, and gave a big apologetic _curtsy_. When the pedestrian hurried away in annoyance, she turned back to Sandro and and presented a hand for a marvelously gangster, three-step, secret hi-five-handshake-alternative. They turned back to their picnic blanket, and she plopped down with a book and threw a sandwich to Sandro after the boy put away their tools and wadded up their trash. He unwrapped the sandwich. She reached out to tug his hood further down, glanced about, and coaxed him into turning about to face the parasol as he ate.

Michelangelo waited quietly, wishing he could see through Donatello's giant Luigi head with X-Ray vision to gauge his expression.

But when Donatello spoke, his voice gave everything away because it was very soft and almost warbled on the spoken realization: "He has a... a friend."

"A _girl_ friend," Michelangelo agreed enthusiastically, before realizing that maybe he shouldn't have added those words together like that. But then Donatello ought to have understood, because their first and arguably most important friend, ever, had been a girl.

* * *

[Author's Note] Cowabunga Carl and Mikey getting a job (and getting traumatized by large numbers of overly aggressive/enthusiastic children) only featured in the 2007 TMNT movie, but since I was having the two of them disguise themselves in big-headed costumes, it seemed remiss not to include a reference to it XD


	26. Primary Caregiver

It was _patently against the rules_ that Sandro should be walking through the sewers while deleting duplicates of his pictures. The phone shed too much light on him and not enough on his surroundings. And while the sewers were unabashedly Turtle Turf, that didn't mean invaders, refugees, or adventurous kids didn't turn up on occasion. Sandro was a juvenile ninja belonging to a famous family of mafia-despised ninjas, and whenever he was out of the lair he was expected to be paying attention. He either needed to be relying purely on night vision, or using a flashlight, and he ought to have been _alert_.

Sandro's thumb paused over the one photo he'd gotten of Wild with her hoodie down. He smirked fondly, turned a corner, and crashed headlong into the unyielding wall of a seven-foot-six turtle, who'd apparently been standing there in pitch darkness with his arms crossed, waiting for _exactly_ this to happen.

The first reflex Sandro's body made was to shut off the phone; It happened even before he even had time to recoil back from the collision. _Fuck. Shit. he_ stood there in reeling silence for a moment, gaze still lowered such that he could only see his Donatello's feet and the butt of a Bo staff. Then he lifted his eyes up paneled armor to find the Purple Turtle's unamused expression. "Hi Uncle," he squeaked a greeting.

"Hello, Sandro," Donatello replied quietly. "We need to have a talk about this." No high-strung rant, lecture, or barrage of details followed.

Sandro's eyes widened and he shrank guiltily downward, a lump rising in his throat. The dripping silence was heartbreaking, because Donatello never took long conversational pauses, not unless he felt genuinely _wounded_ or betrayed and had to slowly process through everything he wanted to say. "I'm _sorry,_ " Sandro breathed, and meant it.

A long silence. "What _for_?" the older turtle asked.

The possibilities came tumbling out of him, anything to make Donatello stop looking at him like that: "Lying about where I was. Going topside behind your back. Abusing my privilege to roam the sewers without oversight."

Donatello blew out a slow breath, and then leaned forward on his Bo as sternness edged his voice, but at least he was talking now: "I didn't hear anything about being sorry you've been repeatedly endangering your own life. "

Sandro winced. "Endangering my general safety quotient is not directly endangering my _life_ ," he argued feebly.

"I am sure you have been doing both. Your GPS is off as we speak."

"I haven't!" Sandro protested. "I mean, not recently...! Not for months!" Donatello had a way of searching his face, back and forth, _gently_. Like the reality was barricaded and required coaxing. "I haven't been going anywhere near the Foot, I _swear_ it! I-I..." If anyone deserved—truly _deserved_ —Sandro's honesty, then Donatello did. "I was hanging out with a friend."

Dontaello's facial expression didn't change. "If Casey or anyone else was taking you out, I'd know-"

"No, not a friend of the family. A friend I... A friend I made myself." And there it was, even though his uncle had unknowingly given him so many different ways to try and get out of saying it.

But Donatello reacted strangely to the news, appearing neither angry nor dumbfounded. Instead he flinched back almost as if he'd been struck, and then closed his eyes,leaned away from his Bo, and steadied himself with a deep breath. Sandro wasn't sure how to interpret that.

"Uncle? A-are you angry?"

"Of course I am _angry_ ," Donatello muttered. "Just... severely _disarmed,"_ he gestured, "that you actually did tell me the truth. Particularly when it seems you even tried lying to Michelangelo when given a similar opportunity." Mikey took that as a clue to lean out into the tunnel behind Donatello, and waved to indicate he'd been standing there the whole time. Sandro straightened on the realization that Donatello _had already known about Wild_ , had been actively baiting him into lying.

He felt proud that he hadn't done it, suddenly. _Intensely_ proud.

Still, Donatello turned a critical stare back down on Sandro as Michelangelo jogged up to join them. "But you still have been disappearing topside with a complete stranger, both at night and now in the middle of the day. I assume the latter was a bid to keep everyone in the dark as to your activities, as you disobeyed nearly every rule we've set out for your safety. Sandro. What do you think your mother will say?"

Sandro's face glazed up in panic."Whoa!" Michelangelo protested this line of conversation and threw himself over Donatello's side. "Donnie, you're interrogating wrong again! You have to ask questions before pose death threats, remember?!"

"I wasn't-" Donatello tried to interject, but Mikey had already stolen the conversation:

"How old is Le Tiny Chick? What is her _name_? Has she seen the BatDad Vine where he shouts 'who sent you' at the ladybug?!"

Sandro dazedly blinked between his two uncles, heart racing. Then he choked out the answers, _information_ , the only tool he had by which he might get Donatello to calm down: "H-her name is Anastasia. She's thirteen, and her family just moved here from Gotham, so she laughed so hard when BatDad shouted at the ladybug that she fell over and couldn't breathe and almost required resuscitation."

Michelangelo squeaked a gasp and looked up to Donatello while still hugging to his arm. "Can we _keep_ her...?!"

"How and when did you _meet_ this girl, Sandro?" Donatello asked, abandoning any effort to dislodge Michelangelo so that he could redouble focus on the conversation instead.

"Three months ago." _Just blurt it out, the way you once told Wildcard to._ "I was pretending at being an adult and 'patrolling' Foot territory, exactly like I shouldn't have been. And I saw some Foot messing with some kids."

Donatello bristled but Mikey brightened up and seemed to find this story fantastic: "And you super-heroically rescued her!? O-M-G this story sounds familiar, Don!"

"Uh. Not exactly." Sandro blushed. "I screwed up really badly and ended up getting chased cross-city by Foot, one of whom was wearing a black-belt and carrying a katana, and another of whom was openly firing on me with a shotgun. I bumped into Wild—Anastasia—who had been out trying to determine where the sound of gunshots was coming from, and... _she_ did the rescuing."

"A thirteen year old girl... took on on _two Foot_...?" Donatello asked slowly.

Sandro shifted uncomfortably. "She or I ought to have been seriously hurt," he admitted. "Between my clumsy escape and the shotgun, there was a lot of noise, and we didn't see her. She's a slum kid and carries knives for self defense, and she's got a mean throwing arm, and she nailed the first two in the back before they'd even known what had hit them. The third was just dumb luck and... then we were safe." He scuffed a foot. "I tried to get away, but she demanded an explanation for what had just happened and we started talking."

Michelangelo released Donatello and blinked several times. "Ohhh. So _that's_ why she keeps calling you 'sweet damsel' on your chat logs." Sandro turned scarlet. "Hehe, that's _cute...!"_

Donatello frowned. "Your new friend is martially proficient and has very _convenient_ timing, don't you think, Sandro?"

For a second Sandro wasn't certain what he was alluding to, but then he stiffened. "Your first instinct is to assume she's a _spy_?" Meekness departed his voice. "Why? Because I'm so unlikable I couldn't possibly make a friend of my own?"

"That's not what I said at all, Sandro," Donatello replied, growing cross with his testiness. "Don't glare at me like that. There are certain unfortunate truths about our lives which prioritize safety concerns over-"

"She had no idea I was even a mutant, much less a turtle! None of them saw my face!"

" _Her_ knowledge base can be faked," Donatello retorted, now quite agitated. "Did she coincidentally happen to know just how to get you to talk to her? Make all the right guesses? I mean, come on, Sandro, _think_. Did anything stand out? The penultimate and most obvious play would be to 'innocently and unknowingly' offer _pizza_ and sympathize about family and normality problems, but I assume even you would have seen through that."

Sandro's heart rate went berserk, and heat flushed up through him. "You—yer _wrong_ ," he growled. "She is my friend."

Donatello grimaced. "It's no good talking to you if you lock up like that," he scolded.

"No good talkin' ta _me!_?" Sandro all-but-shouted. "Clearly ya weren't always this cynical, because this wasn't yer reaction to meetin' my mother!"

That knocked his uncle off balance only an instant: "No one knew about us then, she was helpless and _fainted_ , and we brought her back to our father to seek his advice. There is little enough similarity to your present situation, Sandro—"

"Then are ya sayin' _kids_ are guilty until proven innocent all because _yer famous?_ " Sandro sputtered. "I'm understandin' why celebrity kids are fucked up if that's their parents' logic-"

" _Language_ , Sandro. She's a stranger whom we know nothing about-!"

"Whom _you_ know nothin' about," every vowel had grown heavy, masticated, punctuated, " _I_ know her!"

"You _think_ you do, but presently you're too rash and emotional to hear a perfectly sane and level-headed discussion about the matter, so I'm not sure why I'm even bothering at lecturing you instead of getting your mother on the phone to do it for me!"

Sandro grit his beak at what was the absolutely _worst possible thing to say_ (And Donatello ought to have known it but somehow never did). Then he spun about, fingers clenched into fists, body tense, trying to look anywhere but at his family, trying to _cool down._ Michelangelo tried to say something, but Donatello quieted him. Donatello waited. Donatello _always_ waited. When Sandro clammed up and turned bitter and cold (only on the outside), Donatello would always let him stomp off to regather himself. Other people liked to pin him in place and _keep talking_.

Michelangelo watched for a moment, tilting his head to the side as he noticed Sandro's clenched fists were _shaking_ he was so upset. Orange Turtle raised a brow and then looked worriedly up at his brother and whispered: "Donnie, did you notice he just...?" S _ounded exactly like Raphie?_ But Michelangelo realized he couldn't say it so softly Sandro wouldn't overhear. And any talk of April, Raph or Sandro's hypothetical similarities to either parent, was not what Sandro presently needed, no matter how much the obvious tended to skip Don sometimes. "Nevermind. Don't threaten to call April, you promised!"

Sandro twitched. Donatello rounded on Michelangelo. "I absolutely did _not._ I told you I would _not_ make that promise," the purple turtle growled. "And as much as I'd love not to worry her over trivial details, this is serious. She _and_ Raphael—"

" _No_ ," Sandro begged, his voice strangled and raw, as he turned back to face his uncles. " _Please_. He doesn't listen, he'll _never listen_ to anything I try to say. _Please._ "

"You're grounded," Donatello told him, but seemed to hear his plea nevertheless. "Until you confess to them yourself, you're not leaving the lair. But I ask you, Sandro, what is it going to take to keep you from going topside again? Is being grounded enough, or do I have to child-proof the front door to keep you from breaking another promise to us? Maybe tie you down at night?"

Sandro shook his head: "What is it going to take to get you to _let_ me see her?"

"That's not going to happen, Sandro. But you now have the option of coming clean with your parents in your own time and seeking their approval, which is the way you should have handled things from the beginning, honestly."

"Oh yeah, easy peasy," Sandro growled with seething hatred, "because you've certainly never sat at the kitchen table, hidin' in a book, while the sewer foundations rattle with hell's fury all 'cause I've tried to tell Raphael somethin' Raphael didn't want to hear."

It took at least sixty seconds for Sandro to register the shock which had dropped Donatello's shoulders and jaw, and rendered him mute.

Then the younger turtle recoiled, stung, panicked and regretting every word. _No. Don't. I didn't mean that. You are always there for me. You are the only one who is always there for me._ _Why do I blurt this shit? Why would I say something like that...?_ This wasn't fair. Sandro had borderline eloquent vocabulary, as Wildcard kept reminding him, but he couldn't make it five seconds into a conversation about real topics with his own family. _I didn't mean that. I didn't-_

Michelangelo was leaning back from both of them, as it was as if a nuclear blast had just gone off, but now at the heartbroken expressions they both were wearing he realized they might need him. "Whoa," the orange turtle exclaimed, and then inched forward and reached out to both of them. Neither was particularly smart about resolving intense emotional fallout on their own. "Whoa, Sandro, we've been listening to Raphie bellow since we've been _two_. Maybe we got too used to it. W-we didn't mean to let you down. _Really_."

"No," Sandro mumbled vacantly. "It's not your fault. It's me. I... I can't do it," he laughed, bleakly, and the sound disturbed both of his uncles and pulled Donnie back to his senses, "I can't stay calm. I can't control what I say. All I can do is keep quiet. If I don't talk, I don't say stuff like this."

Mikey felt Donnie move, maybe to step forward, maybe to attempt a reassurance—

—but before anything could happen, Sandro suddenly dropped to his knees on the concrete. He didn't look at either of them, just folded his hands in his lap and lowered his head respectfully towards his eldest uncle, who was still gaping at him. He said: "Please, uncle, don't keep me parted from my best friend. She's crazy, juggles knives, and I pick on her for being short; but she never lets me feel sorry for myself. A-and if you make me talk to them..." his voice caught, and the next words fell on the breaths of sobs, "I'll lose her forever, and... I-I'm s-so _af-fraid._ I leave her side and go home every day, afraid I'll never see her again. And I'm s-so s-sorry I _l-lied_ , but..."

Donatello cast his Bo aside and knelt, grabbing hold of the boy and dragging him into a painfully tight hug. Sandro cried out in surprise and then slumped into the hold and started quietly sobbing. Donatello supported the back of his head, and rocked him, and gently whispered hushes to him. Mikey waited a few seconds, on account of the fact that they were clearly having a moment, before he plopped himself down and hugged both of them, because they were both dummies who clearly needed all the help they could get.

* * *

Because Sandro was still clearly distressed, his uncles got him to sit down at the kitchen table and drink some water. Donatello stayed with him with a hand on his shell. Mikey fixed him up a bedtime snack of toaster strudel (that stuff was delicious, yo). And they were fortunate he was so _tired_ afterwards that he didn't have the energy to get embarrassed. They put him to bed like he was a child half his age (and like Mikey still needed to be put to bed sometimes, hehe), and Donatello actually stayed seated on the edge of his bed with him until his breathing leveled out and it was clear he'd managed to fall asleep.

He did, however, steal Sandro's phone on the way out, which Mikey shot him a look for, and sat down at the kitchen table to review their message history. Fair enough, Mikey had already seen that. "He was smart enough to encrypt their pictures of each-other," Purple Turtle remarked. "I couldn't break into this if I tried."

"Ho, the honors there go to you, bro," Michelangelo teased, "You taught him right!" But then the orange turtle went to the chair just beside Donatello, and turned it clear about, and flopped onto it with his arms draped over the backboard. He gave a heavy sigh. "That hit me in the feels, back there. What are we gonna do?"

"About the girl," Donatello asked a little grimly, "or about how he's clearly terrified of his own parents?"

"That... that second one sounds like a doozy," Michelangelo admitted quietly. "I don't think we're solving that one in one brainstorming session, yo. Probably need Leo and to leave some super special tasty offerings at Master Splinter's shrine..."

Donatello sighed. "It's going to take some work just to notice when it's happening and keep it from getting any _worse_. Clearly Sandro needs some 'back-up,' but exactly how much interference is _appropriate_... I... I don't know exactly what to do. The idea of trying to tell April how to parent her own son, makes my skin crawl." What Sandro didn't know what that Leo and Raphael had gotten into an argument on the subject a very long time ago, a _bad_ argument, and Leo had sworn off giving Raphael any advice in order to preserve household peace. In retrospect, that might have been a disservice; Leo had always been the first person to jump in and protect _anyone_ from Raphael's attitude.

"I never thought Sandro had a temper," Mikey reflected. "He was always so mellow about criticism in the dojo, you know? But about last year he started shelling up all weird whenever anybody started really lecturing him, you noticed?" Donatello nodded. "That's what that was, wasn't it? He was getting mad without letting himself get mad. Like he just _ate_ it, instead, or pretended it wasn't happening. Son-of-Raphael hit puberty and, like, didn't know what to do with The Beast Within. Or didn't like himself? Man, that's rough."

"A 'temper' is not entirely new. When he was very little, he would get wound up and exasperated sometimes and be unable to articulate," Donatello reminded him. "'Huffy,' April called it."

"I remember that!"

"I spanked him once, for throwing a fit while I was trying to clean sewage out of a cut on his foot. He looked at me like I was a traitor. I sat there for fifteen solid minutes afterwards, coaxing him to 'use his words.' Finally he took a big breath and shakily told me I'd used a Megatron band-aid and he needed a Winnie the Pooh one, because Megatron was a bad guy and couldn't make it feel better."

"Oh Mah Gawd..." This story was so cute.

"I told him that was very understandable, gave him two Poohs, and asked him if it canceled out the negative effects of the Megatron, to which he gave a very shaky 'Yeah' and smiled at me, and gave me the tightest hug in the world. And I remember feeling like the world's worst uncle, ever, who clearly had no right to be bandaging up four-year-olds. Read a lot of papers on the subject of child psychology afterwards, got an appreciation for how _patient_ our father was..."

"Awww..." Of course Donatello demonstrated affection by _becoming better informed._ "Hey, I been thinking... Can you imagine what Rapphie would have been like if he didn't have anybody to bully, or Leo to argue with, or if, like, literally anybody had been able to keep him out of trouble? Like, anybody. Master Splinter had to try to keep tabs on _four_ of us, and sometimes we even helped him, and now there's four adults to just one Sandro." Mikey was pleased Donatello seemed to reflect on that. "You ever think we kinda ganged up on him a bit, or smothered him?"

"Maybe just a bit," Donatello agreed, thinking of that flustered four-year-old who was at once so sensitive and so irate. "He's a good kid, that's more than we could say about 'Rapphie,' isn't it?" That did get a laugh out of Mike.

"Yeah, but ...Sandro's lonely, Don. He doesn't have any brothers. He doesn't even have anybody _his size_ _or smaller._ "

"I know," Donatello said quietly.

Michelangelo looked about, and then reached over and slid open a seldom-used Tupperware cupboard, and pulled out those binoculars he'd borrowed. (Aha! He'd remembered where they'd gone, finally!) Donnie scowled at him of course, but before he could muster a sufficient chastisement, Michelangelo put them safely back into the genius' hands. "I totally stalked them for days, just so you know."

"I gathered," Donatello muttered as he checked the gear to ensure it was unharmed. He wrinkled his nose. "Why is the SD card full?"

"I spent over a week sneaking into the stupidest places to keep an eye on him with _your_ binoculars; I sure as heck wasn't going to forget to record them playing together! Gosh, bro, it's like you don't even know I know you. 'Always document everything; If there's no evidence, it doesn't exist; Backup in triplicate; Your Password can't be 'Password,' Mikey, Blah blah blah.'" Donnie gaped at him. Mikey grinned. "He picks on her _so hard,_ its adorablez. Watch it. The power of curiousity compels you, Donatello...! See if you see what I saw...!"

And curiousity did have that sort of power on Donatello, actually.


	27. It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

[Author's Note] We interrupt your regularly schedule broadcast to bring you a little touch of Raphril, since this fic needs some. Should probably note April is just one year older than the turtles in this mixed-up canon here.

* * *

"Sounds good, Robbie. Seven? I'll bring my best waterboarding techniques," O'Neil joked over the phone as she unlocked the Manhatten condominium and shouldered the door open. A breeze blew in through the eastern windows and flowed out through the western ones, leaving curtains billowing in the wind. She took off her shoes and carried in the day's delivery of groceries. Roberston's reaction made her laugh. "Okay, okay, I won't joke like that. Yes, I promise. See you tomorrow. Mnhmm. Bye."

April tossed her phone onto the kitchen counter top, where it skid alongside the fresh groceries. _Done for the day. Finally._ She sighed contentedly, and found her way across the Japanese rugs of her sparsely furnished living, and over to her study. There, the apartment's sole couch beckoned her to sprawl upon it. She heeded its call, and then shimmied into the knitted blankets that protected it from _someone's_ enormous shell.

Becoming CEO of Channel Six News and privatizing the company had proven (once and for all) that April O'Neil was a conventional _badass_ , but doing so had been a double-edged sword. She'd been able to run _real_ stories continuously while steadily, _subtly_ working to improve attitudes towards costumed heroes and mutants. She'd been working to make the future a better place for her son and for children like him. Yet she'd also traded a life of aggressive sleuthing through criminal activity and instead... been forced to entertain investors, politicians, and lawyers through an unending sea of galas and social events. She'd smile at their sexist jokes, imagining what skeletons lay in their closest, and dreaming of calling Raphael in to 'smile' at them instead. Raphael was the probably only person in the world who could get people to spill their darkest secrets faster than April could.

Oh but it got worse: Time Warner and 21st Century resented her unwillingness to sell her company, and their indifferent, ignorant, and mono-dimensional CEOs had attempted to 'keep her in her place'. How? By running sensationalist anti-mutant pieces, of course! Because that _would_ get the eyes she _couldn't_. So making the world a better place meant April had needed to constantly appease fat egos and keep everyone _secure_ in their masculinity, or whatever.

Pathetic.

Sometimes it was also hard being a woman in this position. It was staggering how many times someone had expected she'd _sleep with them_ as a 'small favor' to secure her company's future. Like: _What? What decade do you think this is?_ And since Raphael always kept an eye on her, no matter whose penthouse gathering she was at, and Raphael had always overheard, it ought to be mentioned that Raphael had never _once_ been a particularly happy camper afterwards. April was lucky to be reasonably proficient in ninjitsu and she always carried pills that could identify chemicals in her mixed drinks; for if her turtle had thought _for a moment_ she'd be unable to take care of herself, April would have some very dead lechers to explain. Thank God for the apartment's punching bag, it had likely saved many of their walls afterward while Raph had cooled off.

Anyway, in time, April had started to think she couldn't _do_ this anymore. Had started to have serious doubts about herself, and her capabilities, and the silver lining of the future. Her health had probably been deteriorating.

And that's when she'd been introduced to Robbie Robserston: the man who had single-handedly saved the Daily Bugle by addressing corruption and turning the message superhero-positive to appeal to youths. Robbie's company had been strictly printed media, but his means of introduction to her had not come through wealthy men in suits. No, he'd been recommended to her by their friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, who had come at Raphael's invitation to have a chat with them on the eastern balcony one evening.

Flash forward two years and April was back at the job she was good at—tracking down the dirty laundry of billionaires, questioning eye-witnesses to supernatural phenomena, and uncovering the activities of super-powered criminals. She still owned the company. She still had the salary she needed to support a large family of six _and_ rent out a New York condominium big enough to contain a seven-foot and easily bored turtle (even if the people on the lower floor sometimes complained she had an elephant stomping around up here). But Robbie was CEO now, and she _loved_ that man. Platonically.

Her salvation had been entirely Raphael's doing. He'd recognized the hard place she was in, and—instead of bullying her into quitting—he'd been incredibly supportive. In the background, without telling her, without _worrying her_ , he'd quietly gone to poll the mutant community for advice and fish for solutions. _He took every burden off me he could_. People who didn't know him well enough would probably be surprise to hear Raphael had ways of displaying affection beyond sassy banter and crude physicality. _Though most people who do know him would still be astounded to learn he can tango._ There was more than one good reason to keep an empty living room, and one of them was coming home to Spanish dance music, scented candles, and a turtle with a red rose clasped in his beak and a mischievous expression plastered all over his grinning face.

She heard a heavy thud upon the balcony as _the Nightwatcher_ reached their floor his favorite way. He strode across the living room, shedding his metal helmet and working at the straps of his armor. He glanced to her. April waved. "Hey handsome," she greeted. "Perform any acts of vigilantism on our way home today?"

"What if ah did?"

"You better have gotten pictures," she drawled.

Half-unarmored-Raphael groaned. "Ah swear O'Neil, if I'd eaten a partic'larly good burger on the way up here, ya'd still demand photographic evidence and run a story on it." He shrugged off the breastplate. She admired him: bright eyes, scars, shoulders, and a few jagged gouges in the shell and plastron that had never sealed properly.

"You're probably right," she agreed with complete nonchalance. "Though, in my defense, burgers seldom impress you."

He chuckled and muttered to himself on his way to the shower. She peeled off the couch (his couch, she usually worked in this room), and padded back out into the living room to peer into the bathroom as her spouse got the rest of his 'superhero' armor off. Raphael must have sensed he was being observed, for a broad, black, prehistoric tail began to curl and flick from side to side, almost as if _smug_ with itself. It had every right to be; It was a _fine_ tail.

April winked at him as he caught sight of her in the mirror. "The shell rot's coming back."

"What!" The tail went limp with mortification as he twisted about to get a look. " _Again_!?"

She laughed en-route to the bedroom. "You need to let Donnie have look at it on Saturday, this is getting chronic. Where did you put the antibiotic ointment?"

Raphael heaved a tremendous sigh. "Bedside table," he mumbled— _pouted,_ really. She grinned to herself.

If Raphael had been asked to name one thing he actually _liked_ about his own physical appearance, April knew he would have unabashedly chosen that battle-scarred but nearly indestructible shell. Poor Raph had struggled more than Donatello or Leonardo with the knowledge he wasn't and never could be normal, and he hadn't coped as easily as Mikey whose dazzling self-confidence and puppy-dog eyes could win over anyone's heart (and she knew that best because of how her turtle had tried to keep her at arm's length.) But that shell had survived being cracked, chipped, shot, pierced, scratched, dropped upon by an an entire sewer's worth of falling concrete, seriously damaged, extensively repaired, and it was fundamentally _his_. An entire life's story was written on its surface, and to find it blemished by something so trivial as _fungus_ was surely unbearable for him. He would have been less upset to find out one of his Sai was rusting.

April went to rummage in the bedside table, but apparently picked the wrong drawer. Instead of finding the ointment, her fingers settled on an old photo album. People didn't make albums anymore... they stored their pictures digitally, and seldom took them out for review. A wave of nostalgia hit her. Slowly, she drew out the book, opening the front of it, and leafing through carefully preserved photographs. Years and years of her life stared back at her, through the lens of her Turtle Family: Pictures of them all as gawkish teens being silly and irresponsible, or of Master Splinter, covered in a drapery of four rowdy but adoring children. There were large gaps in years between them, and the entries of new friends and sudden absences of a great father went unexplained except by silent memory.

April didn't hear Raphael come up behind her (who ever heard Ninjas coming, really?) but she realized she'd been tearing up a little when his hand settled on her shoulder and startled her back to the present. "We," she sniffed. "We're not home enough."

"Na, but that's life," he agreed. One might have thought him callous or indifferent from that tone of voice, if only she had not listened to him confess how lonely he was on a daily basis, and how much he missed the constant company of his brothers. "Not everythin's peaches and cream."

She reached the end of the pictures and flicked back and forth through the last few pages. There was still plenty of room for future photographs. "We need a more recent picture of Sandro," she laughed. "Look at how small he is in this one. Oh my God, Raph, he was such a _cute baby_. Those eyes!"

Raphael made a thoughtful noise that suggested he was distracted. She glanced up at him just as he lowered his phone down to her, and she saw he'd been rifling through his pictures. The one he presented to her was of their thirteen-year-old boy caught mid-kick in the dojo while in a practice spar with Leonardo. What an action shot! Her mood brightened instantaneously, and she took the picture to admire their child. "Ya wanna print that one?" he asked.

"You took this? Look at you!" she complemented Raphael. "Sneaking pictures like a pro! The reporter instinct grows strong within you, grasshopper."

"You have taught me well, Senpai," Raphael agreed with a kiss in her hair, and April laughed. _Senpai_ , because Sensei and Master were for Splinter alone; In Raphael-Speak, they meant 'Dad'.

"Of course! I couldn't let you get caught caught being sentimental or anything," she teased back. "Oh, he's getting so _big_ Raphael..."

"He's gettin' ta be a little _snot_ is what he's gettin," her turtle muttered. "I swear when he started raisin' his voice at ya..."

"Raphael, your son getting excitable and a little moody was not an excuse for you to storm out of the dojo, across the entire breadth of the house, and into the kitchen after him like a homing missile."

"Damn straight it was, yer his ma and he hardly gets to see ya, so he ain't gonna be talkin to ya like that on the two days a week ya actually get ta be there. Hey! Don't look at me like I did something wrong, yous was plenty pissed at him too."

"I was disappointed at his priorities, Raphael." And maybe a _little_ pissed, but if she admitted that to Raphael he wouldn't take this seriously. "Besides, you know I talk more _pointedly_ than I need to, sometimes, but that doesn't mean I'm genuinely mad. I'm a reporter. I'm supposed to ask questions in a slightly doubtful and aggressive fashion."

"Yeah well see if I'mma let him be 'aggressive' back. He's gotten an attitude in the dojo to boot, always muttering barbs when he's getting instructed, like he's tryin' ta start something. Ignorin' him wears on patience I ain't got, when my first instinct's to stuff his face into the carpet for bein a smart-ass little shit."

"Raph," she groaned. "He's just a kid. His voice hasn't even finished changing. You've got to be the adult here, and the bigger person, and just not let him get to you, no matter how... confusing he might behave sometimes."

Raphael growled. "Ain't nothin' confusin about having no respect fer his elders, partic'larly when we're only worried about _him_."

"Raphie, you've had thirty years to figure out your temper. _He's_ just a child." She patted his arm. "Just go a little easier on him, will you?"

Raphael groaned, and went to find that shell rot ointment. She wanted to laugh but, as she admired his (numerous, she discovered) pictures of their son she couldn't help but think of how much of his life the two of them were _missing_. There were times she felt so estranged from her own baby boy, or where she panicked on watching him display an unattractive new personality attribute she hadn't expected, and yelled at him as if doing so could somehow earn her a _retake_ and allow her to monitor him more closely the second time around so things turned out 'right.' Maybe she oughtn't to be giving Raph parenting advice.

For all that he'd talked of missing _his brothers_ , Raphael spent the majority of every weekend training _Sandro_. The sessions were grueling, and—privately—April hoped so much combat training never became necessary. She was banking on Sandro pursuing a safe, academic career route, and he had the grades to pull it off. But Raph was making up for lost time in his own way, in the only way that made sense to him, and April would never take that 'bonding time' from them. Besides, this was his way of protecting Sandro despite being unable to be physically present, by making sure Sandro stood a chance at protecting _himself_.

Because no matter how much Raphael shouted, or complained about Sandro's attitude, or played drill sergeant in the dojo, the truth was that his son had been born on the anniversary of Splinter's death. For Raphael, that was no coincidence: That was a sacred duty not to 'fail' in protecting his family _twice_.

* * *

When Sandro woke up his alarm clock suggested he was still on a semi-diurnal time schedule. He reached for his phone only to find it missing. Dread crept up in him. 'Grounded,' Donatello had said, 'until you come clean to your parents.'

 _Oh yes_ , Sandro thought gloomily, _because my mother, who just so happens to be a criminal investigation journalist famous for exposing super-villain activity from California to Maine, will surely approve of the secretive, knife-juggling, lewd daughter of Gotham's Joker._ Not that Sandro would ever even get a chance to introduce Wildcard; He'd not get through sixty seconds of conversation with his mother before Raphael turned it into a Conversation-With-Raphael, and after that Sandro wouldn't have any words left in him at all, just icy silence.

Exactly what had Donatello meant by 'grounded?' Did Sandro not have phone privileges? Internet privileges? _I should have texted her the second I could. Even a quick 'Discovered!' would have explained the jist of things._ There was only one way for him to find out the extent of his punishment, and that was to get up and ask Donatello. Rolling over and going back to sleep in a depressed lump would not solve anything.

He stood, and checked on Lady Smiles-A-Lot and the other reptiles, and then quietly edged out his bedroom door. Leo was at the kitchen table in full kit, suggesting he'd just come off patrol. He was eating his lasagna quietly, but the way Donatello was leaned up against the cabinets and turned towards him suggested the two had been having a long conversation. Sandro suspected he was the only possible topic, but he might have been wrong... Sullenness crept up with him, but he headed up to the kitchen table and passed behind a silent (Thank Splinter) Leonardo to see if there was any more of that Lasagna. There was

Donatello watched him enter an then remarked, "It's an odd time to be waking up, don't you think, Leo?"

"Yes," Leonardo agreed. "Perhaps Mikey should not keep him up so late with video games."

"Why? At least someone plays with me," Sandro muttered. Then he was so unimpressed with himself and sagged against the cabinets and pressed his his palm to his face. _What is wrong with me, seriously?_ It was hardly Leonardo's fault for not spending time with him if Sandro was sneaking out of the house and _not_ pestering his eldest uncle for extra lessons in the dojo. _Come on Sandro._ He shook his head, and tried to recover, and spooned that lasagna onto his plate. Maybe his mood would improve with food.

But Leo said something very sweet: "We should go fishing sometime."

Honestly that did cheer Sandro up a bit. "Thanks. Sounds incredibly boring, but I'm in."

Leonardo smiled and finished his food. "Next week, then. It's a promise." He excused himself to go meditate and prepare for bed, and on his way out he patted Donatello on the shoulder. Sandro was at a loss as to what the two of them had been discussing. Leo ought to have lectured him an hour solid if he'd learned what Sandro had been up to, and then immediately gone to speak with Raphael.

When Leo was gone, Sandro looked up to Donatello, and found the latter to be still leaning there with his arms crossed and a reproachful expression on his face. Sandro grimaced. "Can I have my phone back?" he asked quietly.

"Sandro, I think you fail to understand the gravity of what you have done. I've restricted your internet service to home school websites and research databases, and temporarily disabled your games. Michelangelo is under orders to keep you away from the television. Today you are going to go through your regular chores, and then you are going to scrub and vacuum the dojo spotless."

"I'm up-to-date with all of my chores and ahead in my school deliverables by a month," Sandro replied, more sharply than he intended. "If I dust the rafters and beat the rugs first to be extra thorough, the dojo still won't take more than three hours. After that I am apparently not allowed to play and have no work to do. And you think this is going to convince me going topside is a bad idea? Perhaps you should give me more chores than one; at least I won't die of boredom."

Donatello squinted at him. "That's funny. Are you asking to spend the rest of the day in the _Hashi_?"

"Depends. Will it get me my phone back?"

"Sandro, you are not in the position to bargain when you already have me tiptoeing around the other people we live with."

He'd slammed his hands onto the table and stood before he could really stop himself, and a hiss was in his voice as he said: "All I want to do is tell her I made it _home_ safely! Is that somehow so incredibly _dangerous_ and _fun_ for me to do?!" This hurt. Hadn't Donatello been the one to put him to bed the night before? To hug him? Or had Sandro imagined that?

Donatello looked him right in the face, stood up, leaned over into his personal space, and took the rest of the lasagna. "Dojo," he said. "Now."

Without the rest of his breakfast, apparently. Great. Sandro glared at him shakily a long moment and then turned and stalked off to do as he was told. Leonardo didn't turn to greet him, as he was meditating, but Sandro felt his commentary would have run something like: 'Could you please wait until the room is unoccupied before you start cleaning it?' _Sorry, uncle Leo. Busy passive-aggressively (or aggressively-aggressively) cleaning spiderwebs out of the eaves. Can't hear you._

Donatello watched Sandro leave, and then sagged back and sat on the table. He looked guiltily at the half-eaten lasagna. "God damn you, Leo, that was not the advice I wanted."

* * *

 ** _Oh lookie, a Flashback! To all of like, five minutes ago, too!_**

 _"_ Something's bothering you," Leonardo noted without inflection as he ate the lasagna.

Donatello glanced back at him as he cleaned off the counter tops, mildly annoyed that Leonardo felt qualified to assess other peoples' feelings without showcasing any of his own. 'Aloof' was starting to describe him even on good days. Still, Donnie needed his advice. "I caught Sandro breaking some rules, threatened to put his mother on the phone, and he was so upset about the idea of Raphael finding out he started crying."

Leo merely said: "April is not Raphael."

Donatello threw down the wash rag and turned to him with something of a glower as he peeled off yellow rubber gloves. "You're a splendid help. Thanks."

Leo tilted his head. "If Raphael were a single father, you would fight him tooth and nail to improve the situation, wouldn't you?"

Donatello frowned. "What? I don't know. I don't understand what you are getting at."

"The person you struggle to correct has never been Raphael, Donnie. Because you both love and admire April, neither you nor Sandro will admit that he has almost no relationship with with her whatsoever."

"She's his mother!" Donatello snarled incredulously. "What the shell!? How can you even say that!"

"He does not perceive her as someone he can go to with his problems. The person who has that honor is you. When Sandro wants the comfort of a maternal figure, he _always_ goes to you." Donatello recoiled in horror, but Leo proceeded along as calmly as one might describe the weather: "You will not dishonor April by admitting that to yourself. And you will not hurt her by suggesting that you know her son better than she does. So when a confrontation breaks out, you affect to know nothing, and act like just one uncle of three."

"What!? I _am_ one uncle of-! That's not-! I-I'm not having this conversation with you. Y-you have no idea what you are talking about. You're barely even _here_." Mentally as well as physically **,** because Leo-from-a-long-time-ago would not have called him 'maternal' and then passed up the opportunity point out that Donatello was currently in an _apron_ and had just cooked dinner for him.

Leo disagreed: "I'm here every day, at one hour or another. His parents aren't."

"You think they're happy about that!? You know she only took that job to support this family!" Maybe some damn old-fashioned humor would have made this conversation bearable!

"Clearly, no one is happy. But if you continue on in denial of the role you fill, nothing is going to get any better."

"Why are you pinning this on my shoulders!? He is the son of my _best friend_ and my second eldest brother, and I have done nothing except try the utmost to be-!"

"-the most emotionally level, consistently present, and nurturing adult available for at least five days out of every seven, for eight years. And you are still somehow surprised he looks to you for protection? You are confused he experiences panic when he thinks you will turn away and do nothing?" Leo raised a brow, and some wryness crept into his tone. "Aren't you supposed to be the genius here?"

Seeing any emotion in Leo at all made Donatello simultaneously _happy_ and angry; he wanted to smack him over the head with a Bo. "... Why is this the first you're saying anything, if this has clearly been on your mind for awhile? If this is supposedly so obvious, why hasn't Mikey said something? Done something? He's here as often as I am, watching this."

"Mikey is waiting for you to tell him what to do." Leonardo observed, and then added a wholly unexpected: "As am I. If a judgement call needs to be made as to what is best for Sandro, and whether we need to confront his parents, then the person to make that call is you, Donatello. I say so not out of disrespect for Raphael or April; I think in many ways they are doing the best they can. All I have said is what is both observable and true: that Sandro _trusts_ you. By what you have said to me, he sees April as an extension of Raphael. Fixing that is up to you."

"Y-you... you just... Wow, what a way to disavow responsibility for making decisions," Donatello muttered; he was tense, upset, and not certain if he was willing to accept or give validation onto _any_ of this. "It's a little disgusting of you, _Fearless Leader_. Everything's Donnie's fault? Really?"

"No." Leonardo looked at him or, rather, through him. "Are you blaming me for something? For not taking charge and acting first? For not arguing with Raphael about this when it started?"

"No, you... y-you did. Argue with him." And Leo had, and it had gotten ugly.

"Raphael is not going to allow parenting advice to originate from _me_ anymore, and I will hold to the promise I made him. I can, however, support you or Mikey. So until an actual, measurable situation started bothering _you_ , there was little I could do despite how his propensity for hollering at the boy always bothered _me_. A word of advice: The one mistake I made—aside from being myself—was to bring up Father. I am not certain if Raphael would react differently now that more years have passed, but his reaction was... beyond irrational. 'You are not Splinter,' was his favorite phrase for years afterwards, and he never called me 'Junior' again."

* * *

[Author's Note]  
Author: Sorry, Wild. I don't think the romance with Karai ended well in this universe...  
Wildcard: "Noooo- Wait, why does that sound like a _promise_ instead of a _letdown?_ "  
Sandro: *Puts hand over her face* "Don't let her keep talking, she'll figure out the entire plot and spill it, and _I_ for one want to be surprised."  
Joker: *Giddily scarfing down popcorn*  
[Author's Other Note]  
SCREW GENDER ROLES, WOOO!


	28. Blather

Wildcard woke to the realization that it was already ten. That was a whopping _four hours_ later than she was accustomed to getting Sandro's Good Morning call. How had she managed to sleep in so late? Ugh, probably all the difficulty she had getting to bed at a reasonable hour! Wildcard sat bolt-upright, and then quickly sent a 'ping' text to her missing turtle. No reply came. Was something wrong? _Oof._

Wildcard got up and went downstairs to eat, where a curious parent had presumed she'd slept in intentionally. The worried look on her face surely clued him in, but he didn't ask. Wildcard ate cold cereal and milk and then returned to secret herself back in her room. She paced back and forward in attempt to figure out what to do. She sent another 'ping,' even though she knew it was useless. Sandro had his alerts and ring tones all disabled to prevent family members from realizing he was in contact with anyone; One message was all he needed, but he'd have to actually check for it. Which he could only do if he was both _okay_ and in possession of the phone.

 _Gah._ If Sandro was in any kind of trouble, then surely it was her fault by one means or another.

Had he gotten waylaid by the Foot in the sewers? If so, his disabled GPS might have left his family unable to locate him. Wildcard throttled down on her anxiety and tried to tell herself the most _likely_ explanation for his silence was that Michelangelo had finally confronted him or spilled the beans to his family members, and that they had taken away his phone while they decided what to do about the situation. And if that was the case, well, then that was _also_ her fault but Sandro would at least be in no actual danger.

Wildcard heard her father getting ready to leave "Dad!" she called in agitation, and flew out of her room to lean far over her little railed balcony. "Where you headed? Can I come?"

"What, and spend _time_ with me?" Hazel eyes gleamed curiously up at her. " _Madness_! Did the weekend come early?" Weekends were when she and her father usually hung out. Sandro's parents always came home late on Friday night or early on Saturday. Rather than being extra-special-sneaky, Sandro and Wildcard had decided it made perfect sense to play it safe and schedule weekends as family days.

"I don't know what's up," Wildcard admitted pathetically.

He chuckled sympathetically. "Well, we can't have you turning into a nervous wreck while that sorts itself. Get down here squirt, we've paint to buy." Wildcard rolled over the railing and landed on the couch, and he sighed dramatically. " _Must_ you? IKEA furniture is not sturdy enough to handle such abuse."

"The day I break the couch with my tiny butt will be a day to commemorate with lots of pictures," she reported as she walked over the headboard. He reached out to take her hand, and she stood herself up straight and pretended to descend back to the floor with great grace and poise. He snickered.

The two of them had a full day. They shopped for house decorating supplies, and hit some party and crafts stores afterwards. Her father seemed to be gauging her reaction to Sandro's absence because he kept glancing in her direction. He distracted her with banter, bringing her back to the realm of house paint, plywood, sinks, plaster of Paris, air-setting clay, liquid latex, spirit gum, paint, makeup, tricks, and artistry. In the afternoon they took down the ugly wallpaper in the kitchen and repainted it.

"Your birthday's coming up," Joker mentioned as they worked to steam and scrape off the glues and fibers of seven different layers of floral print. It was helpfully mind-numbing work. "Have you thought of what sort of present you might like?"

"Yup," Wildcard said. Full stop.

Joker glanced at her and patted her head. "I'm sure he's fine, squirt. He's a big boy. Don't worry so much. Next weekend, would you like to go camping?"

Wildcard looked to him, interest piqued. "With a tent and everything?" He nodded with a hum. " _Ooh._ We'll have the best bonfire. Everyone will be jealous and come to ask if they can roast their marshmallows with us. We will be the most competent city-folk campers ever."

Her father winked. "It's a date then."

* * *

Day Two. Friday. Wildcard's sleep schedule was already messed up. She managed to crawl out of bed for Aikido but then crawling back into bed to wake up around dusk. She stalked back and forth across her tiny bedroom, hurling knives into the targets arranged there. This was stressful. This was probably the fastest way to getting her back on rooftops looking for trouble. Wildcard grabbed up her phone and flicked through her contact list. She paused on _Hamato Sandro_ , nestled beside the numbers of pizza joints, subway venues, taco stands, and a wide range of various stores and companies whose locations and closing times she'd wanted to keep track of.

Out of anxiety, she pressed to call him. Not that it would do any good. He _still_ wouldn't see it unless he was looking, and he'd have to get himself somewhere private anyway, and this was why Sandro always called her and never the other way around. _It's not entirely useless. If it at least rings, I know the phone has a charge, which probably wouldn't be true if he'd been kidnapped._ She sat down on her bed, cradling the phone for a bit. _It's ringing._ She dropped it into her lap and sighed.

And then, just then, her phone gave a _click_ as the opposite end picked up. Wildcard jumped and picked up the phone.

"Turtle residence speaking!" cooed an Orange Turtle smugly. "How's it hanging, Tiny Chick?"

"Oh, _hi_...!" Wildcard was silenced by sheer excitement for a brief second. _OMG MIKEY._ "Have you seen the video of the cat who plays chopsticks with the chopsticks?"

A world away, Michelangelo was very quiet, blinking slowly across the kitchen table. Then he calmly took the phone from his ear, and held it out for Sandro. "It's for you, lil bro," he whispered tightly.

"Michelangelo!" Donatello rebuked, but a groggy Sandro had already leaped to snatch the the phone from over his now-forgotten breakfast, and brought it quickly up to his ear.

"Wild!" the boy exclaimed.

" _Sandro!_ "

"Speaker-phone," Donatello mandated. "Or hang up now."

"You're on speaker, Wild," Sandro warned, tapping the phone and warily setting it down. Donatello could move faster than him and was stronger, and could grab the phone if he pleased, but thankfully did not do so

"Oh Hiii Sandro's Family! I like all of you and I haven't even met you yet! Sandro! Sandro tell me, are you dead!?"

"What!? Why yes, Wild," the boy delivered sarcastically, "I even have a new internet and phone server provider, the Afterlife Fiber Optic and Satellite Company. They give me the first six thousand minutes free so long as I haunt someone. First on my list of regrets: Letting you have the last of those doughnuts."

"Man those really were good doughnuts, I ate almost as many as you did. Hey! Hey-hey-hey, how does one earn money when one is dead? Do you have to like pose as a cherub, work as Cupid for a day, stuff like that?"

"Oh come on, those are the cushy jobs," Sandro replied, seeming to have settled down. "They have _me_ dredging the Styx for litter and LSD addicts who don't realize they're not tripping and need to be brought back up on shore. But if you think that's bad you should see the guys doing customer support for people who can't figure out the automated ferry service."

"Oouuuch, that sounds rough, man. Do you need anything? Do I have to leave some doughnuts on an altar somewhere, burn some paper money and some incense or something? Cause if that's the case I think I can still make the noon Chinatown bus..."

"Aw, that's very thoughtful of you Wild, but please don't get any of the standard mourning blends, I'm partial to custard, cinnamon, and jasmine." Sandro was definitely calmer.

"You have a favorite kind of ince- you know what I am just daily staggered by how much more cultured you are than I am. Like if I had a soda on hand I would have conveniently prepared a belch to underscore the difference, but as it is I don't even have a fart ready so you're just going to have to settle for my sleepy yawning."

Michelangelo finally lost all self control and doubled over heaving with laughter. He laughed so hard it looked like he might hurt himself Donatello was significantly less _amused_ , but the sheer quality and quantity of the duo's banter had certainly taken him by surprise and left him temporarily unable to muster commentary.

"Ha!" Anastasia shouted victoriously. "And again, _HA_! I knew I could make him laugh! I knew it, _booya_ , I'm dancing over here, I know you can't see it, but I am. I'm not a very good dancer, your imaginations are probably better than the real thing. Man this is pathetic, I need lessons or something."

"Why do you keep referring to her as 'Wild?' Donatello interjected over his howling brother and Anastasia's rampant chatter.

"Wildcard is my nickname!" the girl explained enthusiastically, though Donatello immediately suspected it was less likely to be a nickname than a trouble-making name. "Also the first time I told him my real name he said it was very pretty and then turned red and stuffed his face with pizza, so I think he prefers 'Wild.' Or Loudmouth. He seems to like calling me Loudmouth."

"Exactly," Sandro agreed, hands still resting defensively on either side of the phone, or perhaps more as if he wanted to cradle it. "As you can see, I made it home safely, but I am extremely grounded."

"Well would it have killed you to text me earlier!?" she demanded. "I couldn't sleep last night I was sick to my stomach worrying about you, and I had to drag myself to Aikido lessons half dead and my teacher-lady was _totally_ not impressed—"

"—s _ensei_ , Wild, the term is _sensei_ and you will—!"

"—never ever ever use it because I'm a disrespectful, ill-bred, mean-mannered, inner-city hooligan, nyah-nyah nyah~nyah~nyah! Oh, also, if you're grounded, does this mean you can't proofread my essay on British Colonialism because _man_ is that gonna be rough without your help. I can't English, Sandro, I _seriously_ just can't _English-!_ "

"Well that's not stopping you from talking a _hundred miles an hour_!" shouted an incensed boy in return.

"I _missed_ you." Her reproachful voice immediately lost its manic cadence, and turned mournful.

He was silent a beat. "Yeah." A breath. "Look, I'm grounded for the entire foreseeable future right now."

"Is... Is everything gonna be okay eventually?" she fished gently.

"I don't know."

"He's only grounded," Donatello interjected, "until he chooses to speak with his parents."

"Pft, whelp, he's boned," she dismissed with jarring vulgarity.

" _Wild_!" Sandro hissed. "Restrict your vocabulary to terms suitable for a PG-13 environment!"

"But 'boned' and 'screwed' are euphemisms when one actually means 'fucked!'"

"Shut _up, Loudmouth_! You are not improving our case right now!" Sandro spat at her over the phone.

"Well let me ask you this, my favorite terrapin, _are_ you going to talk to your parents?" Sandro deflated and didn't answer. "You see? Boned. And since I know how stubborn you are, I can honestly see you putting yourself in the corner for 'the entire foreseeable future.'"

" _I'm_ stubborn?" he groused. "Who's the crazy nit that makes everything awkward and vulgar!?"

Donatello reached out for the phone, but Sandro swiftly grabbed it up and horded it protectively close. "I'm sorry, 'Wildcard,'" Donatello grounded out patiently with a warning look at his nephew, "but we were only accepting your call to inform you Sandro made it home safely. It is time for him to hang up now—"

"—wait, wait, wait, I am assuming this is Donatello?" Wildcard wondered aloud. "Hi! You're his favorite, don't tell Mikey, he'll be heartbroken. Look, if you're trying to figure out how to get Sandro to talk to his parents, look no farther! _I_ can talk Sandro into doing anything. Just ask him. I have gotten him into a science center, two museums, three different movie theaters, repeatedly into the same rec center, and even gotten him to sit still for me while I tested out makeup on him. My hypothesis is, given fifteen minutes, I can get him to agree to talk to his parents. Let me try!"

Donatello recoiled, knocked somewhat off-balance by accusations of favoritism. Mikey made a small 'hey!' but was snickering so hard he couldn't find it in himself to be upset. Sandro snarled out a loud, "You have no such power! This is _different,_ anyway!"

Wildcard laughed: "Why? You already believe you stand zero chance of winning any argument against your parents, right? So, right off the bat, you can deduce you'll never get permitted to come topside to visit me. Think of that as a good thing!"

"HOW THE _SHELL_ IS THA' POSSIBLY A GOOD THIN'!?" Donatello had never heard his nephew yell before. Not like _that_. It actually left him leaning back a few inches.

"Well it allows you to reorganize your priorities! You only have your phone and your internet left to fight for now, and—lo and behold!—you have a clear-cut way of getting them back: confess! Since you won't be trying to get your parents you agree to let you see me, you won't have to argue with them: just list your 'misdeeds' and include you were hanging out with a new friend and simply let the topic die while they freak out about how you were seen. You are basically agreeing to be shouted at and disapproved of in exchange for getting your phone back. Now, tell me honestly Sandro: Is it better to sulk about angry and alone, or is it better to get it over with and at least be able to get back to comparing Dance Dance Revolution scores with me?"

Sandro stared at the phone. Then he asked, spooked: "How did you do that?"

Wild gave a victory whoop. "Ha- _ha_! You'll do it? Ha! Because _I'm_ your best friend, stupid! I've got you figured out to a T! Also I'm a genius. _Booyakasha!_ Two for two! I need to start setting wages for this! Dancing again, by the way!"

Donatello stared incredulously between Sandro and the phone He was pretty sure 'agreeing to get shouted at' wasn't something he wanted Sandro doing, but from the childrens' point of view one _did_ suppose it rather looked like that. Michelangelo had grown quiet beside them, and Donatello wasn't looking to see what his reaction to 'Booyakasha' was.

"W-well what if they forbid me from even _talking_ to you?!" Sandro stammered, nervously glancing at Donatello since that 'plan' had not been surreptitiously presented.

"It's the internet, San. I'll find you. I'll pretend I'm a creepy cyber predator, _rawr_. Or are we doing worst-case scenarios again?" Wildcard cooed conversationally, "You want me to seriously entertain the possibility that your intimidating but loving family will decide to cut off your phone and internet _and_ lock you in the lair until you're eighteen? Very well, please respond to this breech of ethics by learning how to pick locks, sneak into one of their rooms at night, and steal an internet-enabled device to call Xavier's to ask for an intervention—or Child Services! You _only_ have five years to figure it out, I have faith in you! Now assuming something less drastic, like Donnie tries to firewall off my IP, I will go to the library and find a public computer to talk to you from."

Sandro slowly, visibly, deflated while listening to her. His expression didn't relax; if anything he looked forlorn. Donatello stared, not knowing how to intervene.

Wildcard continued to chatter blithely onward: "If they block my phone number, I'll get a prepaid card. If they change _your_ number, I suppose I can try to start using a map of the city and our favorite meeting spots to triangulate where you guys live and send messages in a bottle down into the sewers. If I give you enough bottles, surely you will be able to send one out to me with your new number! And if all that fails, I could wait until someone finally gives you the freedom to roam the sewers again, and then pull up a manhole cover, go to the outtake pipes over the Hudson, and wait for you to eventually bump into me. Pft, I will scheme, handsome boy, I will _scheme_! When am I _ever_ at loss for a plan?"

"I..." Sandro couldn't immediately answer. He was incredibly sad-looking, but seemed strangely comforted. "Okay. You win, Wild, I'll do it."

"Oh. Oh-oh-oh. I know the face for that tone of voice, and it's not a happy one. I'd hug you but... you're going to have to imagine fantastic hug emotes instead. Look... Sandro, take some deep breaths, and go maul a punching bag, and then take a nice shower, and go snuggle a croc for a bit—maybe play some 80s rock and roll to get the rebellion out, something like, eh, _Twisted Sister?_ Last I checked it's almost Saturday and that means your parents are coming home soon, and you can get this over with as soon as they walk in the door." She paused. "You gonna make it?"

The boy gave a big, heavy sigh. "Yeah," he told her.

"Well there you have it. I'll see you soon, one way or another. Kay?"

Sandro wanted to tell her not to hang up, to keep talking to him forever, but perhaps this natural ending was better than another demand from Donnie. "Okay. See ya." He depressed the end-call button, and shut the phone, and pushed it to the middle of the table. He didn't look up. After a few moments of silence, he pushed his food aside, and slumped over the table and covered his head with his hands. He needed a moment.

A world away, Wildcard crawled into her bed again and pulled the pillow over her head. She needed a moment, too.

Michelangelo stood, and came around the table. He peered down at Sandro, and settled a hand on the peak of his shell. Then he looked to Donatello, blue eyes big and shimmering. Donatello slowly crossed his arms and leaned back from the table. A moment passed in silence, and then Sandro got up, and gave a thankful and respectful nod of his head to both uncles, likely for how they'd let him 'get away with' speaking to Wildcard. He turned and headed for the exercise room, likely to find that punching bag he'd been advised on.

"Mikey," Donatello muttered.

"Donnie, bro, I don't think anyone should split those two up. It's wrong, man."

"Why? Because she's funny?" Donatello asked. "We still don't know anything about her."

"That's crap, bro! We know a lot just by the way she talks!"

"That she's irreverent, manipulative, fearless, and definitely from the slums?" Don postulated, still thinking.

" _Donnie!_ Not cool, bro! You still think she's dangerous? A bad influence? _What_? What is your problem with her, bro!? She's his _friend!_ "

Donatello was silent.

"Don't make him do this," Michelangelo begged. "Aren't punishments supposed to secretly make us better? I mean, _shell_. Master Splinter disciplined Raphael by makin him _knit_ to teach him patience! Forcing Lil Bro to own up to his mistakes makes sense, but not like this! This is _stupid._ He's not ready, we don't know what to tell him, he's not learning anything from it... and... and _I'm_ gonna cry if I have to see more of that!" he pointed after Sandro. "This isn't just about breaking the rules, and it's not like he _just_ met her or like you're taking away a favorite toy! She's his friend and he seriously loves her for reals, and you can see it on his face, and _this matters so pay attention to me_!"

Donatello was silent a long moment. Because he agreed. "What are you suggesting we do instead?" the older turtle asked quietly and without condescension. Sometimes Mikey had brilliant ideas when everyone else was stuck in the same rut.

Michelangelo had to take a moment to calm down, because he'd gotten incredibly worked up about the possibility that Son of Raphael and Tiny Next Gen Female Mikey might be separated (gasp, the horror!). He breathed heavily and retreated back a step. Then he looked down at the phone, and the contact labeled 'Free Pizza.'

 _'I'll pull up a manhole cover, go to the outtake pipes over the Hudson!'_

Michelangelo looked back up at his brother. "Look the only thing Sandro really did _wrong_ was go topside and get in one fight, right? So... tell him to confess to that. But give us another week or month or whatever to figure out how we're gonna talk to everybody about _the friend thing_ , he's only got one chance at winning them over on something so big and he's got no confidence at all! I mean, maybe we shouldn't put all the onus of deciding on Raphael and April, you ever think of that? If we check Le Tiny Chick out and approve of her, man, we can _help_ him. Maybe calm Raph down and reassure poor April! I'm saying: I think we should get to know his friend better first. Yeah. That."

"How? You want me to spy on her movements?"

No, Mikey had the perfect idea, _so_ perfect (and simple! and safe!) that it was a wonder it hadn't dawned on him earlier. They'd just have to wait until Monday to do it.


	29. The O'Neilmobile

[Author's Notes] There was something really cute about the facial expressions of Michael Bay's Donatello. His hysterical high-strung panic about single command line interfaces with the fate of an entire city at stake during the finale made me laugh, but c'mon Bay you're trying to tell me Donnie isn't a Linux user? Pfft. Yeah right. After the way he hacked April's computer? People like Donnie are always Linux users. Probably running a Kali distro, too.

Oh, er, sorry, just ignore that rant. I may or may not be a programmer. *Cough.* But no, really: "Tiramisu for everybody, I'm buying!" _Tiramisu!?_ You just saved the city and possibly the country, and you want a dainty little coffee-flavored custard and ladyfingers cake!? That's... amazing, I whole-heartedly approve of your priorities, Donnie.

* * *

"Sandro?"

No one engaged in the act of beating the stuffing out of an inanimate object wanted to converse amiably while doing it. In Sandro's own humble opinion, punching bags ought to have emanated a magical _Silence_ aura. He gave an exasperated eye-roll and grabbed the bag to still it, but didn't look back. "I'm busy."

Donatello came up beside him. "I'm know, but your parents just signaled they're starting the commute, Mikey has already headed out, and I need to tell you something before everyone gets back." He paused a breath. "I know you're angry with me."

Was that true? The sound of it edged uncomfortably under his shell like a chisel. Sandro wrinkled his nose and then shook his head. "Rules are rules."

"Listen. Please." Donatello reached out to push the bag away from him, and to turn Sandro to face him. "Just because we are older doesn't mean we can't become confused or surprised, or make mistakes. Sandro." Sandro still wasn't listening particularly well, and Donatello grasped both of his shoulders and leaned over to catch his gaze. "I don't care about rules. Unless they're taxonomic guidelines for large-scale database programming, I do admittedly have a lot of irrational pet peeves about those. But what I care about is _you_. And I _did_ listen when you explained your fear of losing Anastasia, and I sympathize, but I was... _disoriented_ by it. And I panicked, and I acted like doing things by the book, or being unyielding, would somehow fix everything. And of course that was wrong of me."

Sandro reeled, his stomach caving out from inside him as he tried to understand the implications of what was being said. "What?"

"Change in plan, okay? I don't want you telling April and Raphael about Anastasia yet." Copper-gold eyes widened at him, and all the fight and tension went out of the boy's body. "You _are_ to tell them you've been going topside, because that was reckless and stupid of you, and you will be grounded—but _only_ for that. No one is going to be punishing you for doing something so innocent as meeting a new friend." Sandro looked up at him as if Donnie really were a super hero. "But listen, _listen_ , in exchange, you need to be willing to talk to me about your relationship with your parents. Because this is a problem, but it's a problem I will _help_ you _fix_ every step of the way, okay?"

Sandro bobbed his head, and apparently didn't trust himself to say anything.

Donatello sighed out a heavy breath. Then he released the boy's shoulders and touched his cheek. "Some of the burden of making this better is on _you_ , and I'm going to expect you to work on that with me: To improve your tone, your conversational endurance, and to express yourself even when under duress. Sandro... You must know your mother would be the very first person to champion you in _anything_ if... if she just knew what you needed. Don't you?" Sandro winced. _Apparently not_. Donatello considered him. Then he asked, softly: "Are there times when you are angry at her?"

The boy's eyes widened. "I-I _love_ my mother," he blurted, almost as if set into a panic.

Donatello squeezed his shoulder again."But?" As truthful as that might have been, he knew there was more.

"B-But I... I barely know her." Sandro swallowed past a lump and looked down. "And she always answers questions for me, like I can't think for myself or she doesn't think I'll choose right or something. She's always planning everything. When she asks questions, she lectures if she doesn't like what she heard, and picks her way anyway."

Donatello was quiet a moment. Then he nodded. "You know, your mother has been my closest friend since I was not much older than you," he said with an understanding smirk and a raise of his brows. "I know how she is. I guess I just... didn't calculate how that might compound itself into a bigger problem if she was taking charge of someone who couldn't argue with her... Similar to Raphael picking on someone who can't fight back, I'd imagine."

Sandro didn't know what to say to that. After a moment, he lifted his head and mumbled a dazed and cracking: "I really don't have to tell them?"

"You _aren't_ to tell them," Donatello corrected. "Not until you can do so _successfully_. Assuming your friend is not a spy and trying to kill us, April will just have to tolerate her no matter whether she's a saint... or a female Casey Jones. Because she's yours, and we of all people ought to know how lonely it gets down here, and how much a real friend means. And... look, I'm _sorry_ , Sandro, sorry that you felt so alone when talking to your parents, and I'm sorry for acting callous while merely _pretending_ that I knew what to do. That's not going to be how it is in the future, I promise."

Sandro stared up at him again for a long moment. Then he stumbled forward and hugged his uncle, and Donatello slumped and hugged him back. This, at last, felt correct.

* * *

The Hamato residence had two powerful computers. The first was almost exclusively Donnie's and serviced his laboratory and the adjoining garage. The second handled security, surveillance, and telecommunications for the entire Turtle family, and sat up on a raised platform above the primary living space where it was both easy to reach and yet _usually_ safe from the roughhousing of seven-foot, three hundred pound turtles.

With the commute starting, Donatello needed to be stationed at the surveillance computer to keep a bird's-eye view on the situation. Sandro followed him, not only to watch as would be normal, but also probably because he felt a strong attachment to his uncle at the moment.

"You'll get your phone back on Monday," Donnie was explained with a glance back at Sandro. "Though if you ever disable the GPS again, I won't forgive you no matter what you're trying to hide."

"Got it. Will I ever get to see her again?" Sandro dared to ask.

"Michelangelo has a plan for that, but I need you to meet us halfway on this. No going topside again without direct supervision. Clear?"

"Yeah! Crystal."

They were all on the same page again. "Alright, we'll talk when the weekend's over. Until then, behave yourself for your parents; they barely get to see you. Leo still doesn't know, by the way. Probably for the best, given how he gets about 'safety.'"

"Heyy, I just saw a Pizza Hut delivery car!" radioed in Michelangelo through the speakers. "Quick poll guys, can we do pizza tonight?"

Donatello sat and pulled on the headset so he could talk to them. He usually left the audio on anyway so Sandro could listen. "This is Donnie. Mushrooms and olives, please, and I honestly implore you to set our minimum standard higher than _Pizza Hut_ for the entire rest of forever."

"Gino's is the best," Michelangelo agreed, but Leo radioed in with: "Renato's is more authentic." The two proceeded to argue, one Mikey-rant against one Leo-lecture, about the virtues and shortcomings of their respective favorites. Donnie sighed heavily, and glanced at Sandro, who shrugged and said quietly: "Have you ever heard of Pat's Pizza Hut?"

Donatello straightened and then turned off the mic to laugh. "You found _Pat's?_ That was _our_ place! One of us could bundle up in heavy clothing to place an order in the middle of the night, before we had any money, or phones, or an address for deliveries. We got attacked there once, and ended up using reward money to pay for them to put in bullet-proof glass after Raph and Mikey threw _a rhino_ through the front window and nearly completely demolished the interior."

"Is _that_ why?! It's pretty greasy pizza," Sandro admitted with a startled grin, "but it gets the job done."

Donnie was grinning wide as he turned back to activate the mic again. "Alright children," he interrupted his brothers. "Where is everybody?"

"In position," Leo answered. "No suspicious activity up top. Mikey?"

"Maintenance's clear," the latter replied. "Anything on the cams, Don?"

"Negative. Might want to take a peer at number four since we had to repair it."

"Nah bro, I got a visual on four, nothing fishy's up!"

"Well aside from that, satellite has some wonderfully orange top-down footage in this smog, but my algorithm's still got a bead on April's car. Looks like all's normal," Donatello mentioned.

" _Hello_ , Gentlemen," April greeted as she logged on to the conversation. "I have stolen a few hours of sleep and am just about to reach the gas station."

"Hey April," A chorus of uncles responded, but then Mikey immediately complained: "Hey, you didn't say _it_ right."

"Oh Mikey, how could I forget? _Ahem_! The _O'Neilmobile_ is ready to rumble," she obliged him with a laugh in her voice, and he gave a little triumphant 'yes!' in the background. They heard a click as another voice joined the conversation. "You there, Hubby?"

A brief pause as Raphael activated his microphone. "Ah hate this commute."

"That's funny," April laughed, "so do most Jerseyans. Does that mean we're normal for once?"

Donnie scoffed. "No. Normal commuters don't have mutant super-villains and militarized mafioso Japanese martial artists who try to blockade or cave-in the roads they're driving on." That was by no means an exaggeration; the security computer had a piece of paper tacked up next to it which read in Mikey's circular scrawl: 'Amount of Times the Holland Tunnel Nearly Blew Up but Didn't.' There were sixteen hash marks underneath, although some of them had merely been 'incidents' in the tunnel and had not actually involved any explosives.

Raphael could almost be heard to roll his eyes. "Yeah still wish it weren't part of the reg'larly scheduled program. Tunnel's clear this side."

"Loading up the giant, complaining baby as we speak," April drawled. "Hi Raphie. Do I get a kiss?

Donatello heard Sandro sigh, and glanced away from the screens. He had to disengage from security mode to try and figure out why his nephew suddenly looked a little bitter. Then he tapped the microphone off and pulled off the headset. "San, Raphael means he wished they lived _here_ , not that he wishes they never had to come home."

"Yeah, okay." Sandro didn't look like he quite believed that, and Donatello made a mental note this was one of the things they'd need to address. A person's bias could make them read into everything the wrong way and repeatedly confirm past suspicions; and Sandro was clearly sensitive enough to other people's casual comments that he might be amassing a great quantity of 'proof' for some erroneous conclusions. But there wasn't time now, as April's, "Am I clear to drive?" and Mikey's prod of, "Donniieee, yooohooo?" made clear.

"Had to step away for a sec," Donatello said as he righted the headset and activated the mic. "We all good to go?"

"We're asking _you_ , genius."

"Thank you for reorienting me to the conversation quickly and efficiently, Raph," Donatello retorted snidely. "Yeah, everything's clear on my end. Sound off!" he called, and Leo and Mikey both answered with: 'Clear.'

"Alright boys, the _O'Neilmobile_ is now officially enroute towards-"

"What!? I thought ah told Mikey we weren't callin' it that ever again, dammit!" Raphael snarled to Michelangelo's cacophonous laughter. Sandro thought it was little wonder Mikey liked Wildcard. Out of all the people who could have learned about her first, maybe this had happened the best possible way.

* * *

Sandro approached his parents right as they were coming in the door with Mikey and Leo. His mother had gotten her shoes off first, and was helping Raphael set some things down. Shoes honestly made living in a sewer much more sanitary.

"Mom? Dad? I'm grounded," he explained as April reached out to hug him and he (a little awkwardly these days) returned it. He'd had time to rehearse how this would go in his mind, and now the added knowledge that he wouldn't be forced to talk to them about Wildcard just yet had him honestly almost _excited_ to be done with confessing his mistakes.

"What for?" his mother asked.

"I've been abusing my privilege to wander the sewers by repeatedly going topside for about five months, and I even got in one fight," he said, and wow was it somehow _easier_ when one blurted it all out matter-of-factly like that. He'd been right in telling Anastasia to making it quick; strung out confessions just gave everyone more time to get upset.

April leaned back in surprise and alarm with a reproachful, " _Sandro_!" but Raphael, who was still leaned over and getting his shoes off, asked, "Did you win the fight?"

Sandro stiffened, uncertain if he'd heard correctly and glancing between both of them. He cleared his throat. "Uh, no. I messed up, was clearly losing, ran away, got chased by three elites, fell into a dumpster, and darted back into the sewer. And then I never did that again."

April gaped. But Raphael hissed out into a full-blown, _loud_ belly-laugh. He stood up straight, gold eyes bright, jaws parted as he laughed hard and loud as Sandro had ever heard him laugh. April turned to him in alarm. Sandro, shocked with all his nerves alight, tried to decide if _being laughed at_ by his own father was mortifying. Was it? Strangely _no_. Wild laughed at him all the time. Laughter wasn't really upsetting.

"Ha! HAhahahhahahhaha! You-you-" Raph elbowed April gently, "you sure you didn't tap Donnie back in North-haha!-hampton, stead of me?" April punched his arm hard enough to make him wince. "Hahahaha!"

Sandro decided that joke didn't bother him, though Donatello, who had come up behind Sandro upon realizing what was happening, now sank back with a dry expression and a tolerant tone: "Way to stay classy Raph."

Raphael passed April and came up beside Sandro, still stripping off his jacket. "You been put through _Hashi_ yet, kid?"

"No. I cleaned the dojo instead," Sandro answered truthfully.

"Even better." He gestured with his chin. "Get ya ass in there, and there'd better be some seriously committed push-ups goin' on by the time I arrive."

" _Hai_ ," Sandro acquiesced with a bow, and then turned and ran for the dojo.

Raphael grinned after him and shook his head, still chuckling. April scowled up at him. "What?"

"Don't _say_ things like that in front of him," she scolded.

"Oh come on. When you evah seen _me_ admit to gettin my tail kicked and runnin' away from somethin before a fight could turn serious? Eh? That was _funny_." He winced and laughed more when she punched him again. "How'd you get 'im to fess, Don?"

"Mikey caught him," Donatello explained, dryly amused and privately relieved.

"Mikey! Mikey were prob'ly the one turnin a blind eye to watchin him and lettin' him out in the first place."

"Hey!" their brother complained. "Don't blame me, you ever seen him move? It's like he's a _little ninja or something_...!" A moment of silence followed to acknowledge a phenomenal joke had been made. Then Leo smacked Michelangelo upside the back of the head on Raphael's behalf. " _Ow_!" But nearly everyone was smiling or chuckling afterwards, and Mikey settled down in the knowledge that everything had gone _perfect_ , and all Sandro had really needed was to _feel happy_ about talking to them for once. Just a little bit of real courage, that was all.

* * *

Sandro was indeed repenting by route of push-up when Raphael made his way into the dojo. As usual, his father went first to bow before the little shrine to dearly departed Master Splinter, which sat in a protected alcoveat the rear of the chamber.

"So," his father said when that little ritual was complete, and as he started towards the weapon's wall, "how'd that fight go, exactly?"

"Badly," Sandro admitted between push-ups. "I was going to get hemmed into a corner if I didn't split, and I was being pushed around by a black-belt with a katana."

"Ohhh, see, that ain't gonna fly."

Sandro tried to figure out exactly what part of his description lacked for aerodynamics. He realized it had probably been 'katana,' which was Leonardo's weapon. "I'm sorry for getting in a fight. I'm sorry for going topside."

"You'll be sorry soon enough when ya face is in the carpet. Get ya kama, kid, you've some moves to learn."

Sandro's spirits brightened again, and he looked up as Raphael selected a dull practice katana from the wall. Raphael was usually all one way or another in the dojo: Tough but patient and fair was Sandro's favorite. He had a keen intuitive sense for identifying errors in balance or force made mid-motion, and could help Sandro fix mistakes that Leo might have been attempting to pin down the better part of a week.

But then there were bad days, training sessions where Raphael was so ruthless and pushed Sandro so hard that the boy knew at least _some_ of it had to be Raphael taking out frustration on him. Sandro could smell them coming from a mile away by the thundercloud his father would be carrying, and Raphael would usually _smile_ while doing it, and never let him win, and seemed to treat it like an honest fight or outright beating. Today was not one of those days.

Today was going to be fine. " _Hai_!" Sandro answered, and quickly scrambled to get his training kama.

Donatello called to them, "Dinner'll be here in an hour, guys!"

Raphael responded, "Hey genius, stop feedin' my kid salad. He just needs _beef_ from here on out. Probably raw, too."

"That's not how nutrition works, Raph," droned the genius.

"No? _Pity_." Red Turtle smirked as he settled into a defensive stance. "Alright kid, try to hit me."

Sandro privately thought of how much smaller Wildcard was than himself, but decided not to comment. Raphael and he weren't very good at talking to one another unless it involved explaining a kata, and a conversation about size comparisons made whilst topside wasn't going to go anywhere useful. Besides, he was too busy trying not to smile while still being knee-deep in trouble, lest his father catch on how happy he was.


	30. Too Many Damn Adults!

Wildcard dangled fearlessly with just one foot atop the Jerseyan skyline, clutching the spire of the skyscraper tower and leaning out to feel the wind, as if she herself were a flag. She peered across the Hudson at NewYork, which bathed in a particularly nasty bout of orange smog courtesy of slowly moving air in late summer. She breathed deep, every muscle hot and aching, and wondered if she'd ever made so massive a climb in her entire life. Had she? Never. Most of her time in Gotham, she'd stuck to to the slums.

She'd gone into the basement looking for a distraction, because that was where her dad always stashed bits of gear and supplies for projects. She'd opened a freshly stolen cardboard box and dug through the foam beads to find a set of _gecko claws._ And while she'd never seen anything like them before, their brand name and general shape had made it clear what they were for: they were like little plungers for sticking to glass surfaces! And what better way to test them out than to free-hand climb up a skyscraper? Truly, she'd need to get on amazon. com or whatever and write a fantastic review: 'Worked right out of the box, climbed thousands of yards above the ground on maiden voyage! Didn't even bring a parachute or any ropes! Dependable! Spectacular!' She tossed one in the air and caught it. Nifty, nifty, nifty.

Getting up had been one hell of an arduous journey! Getting down... was going to be another matter. Her body was shaky, and she was thinking that picking the roof janitorial maintenance access and riding down the 'scraper by elevator sounded good right about now. Course that would certainly alarm security, and she'd have dudes armed with billy clubs waiting for her on the ground floor for certain. Given the tight confines of the elevator, and Wildcard's poor melee combat skills, that would certainly lead to no good.

She peered the magnificently long distance down the side of the sky scraper. Distances like this did one of two things to people: it gave them vertigo, or it gave them an adrenaline rush. A smile stretched across her face, because all that _air_ honestly looked _fun_ to jump into. Right up until the 'splat' at the end, of course. Ahh, what she wouldn't have given for one of those crazy 'wing-suits' at the moment! To just leap off and spread one's arms... and not die.

 _Focus, Wild. How do I get down?_ _It's a pity I don't have any actual super powers, like super strength or stamina or dexterity._ Her foresight gave her a certain 'precision' and made her 'lucky,' but it didn't change the fact that she probably lacked the energy to climb back down the way she'd come. _Of course most of Gotham's villains and heroes don't have super powers, now do they?_ No. Gothamites had brains and charisma, instead. That was half of what made them so creepy to everyone else. _'I thought everyone from Gotham was crazy,'_ Sandro had commented, and there was something of a truth to that.

Well, she'd just have to get down the old fashioned way: Throw some knives at upstairs security cameras, pry open the elevator shaft, and climb down the internal shaft walls.

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the breeze a moment longer—holy _crap_! She ducked down, sliding down the side of the tower and grabbing hold of a rung of a maintenance ladder. She stuffed the gecko claws into her backpack and then slid down the ladder, and hurried to get off the roof.

A small but incredibly epic-sounding fwoom and the hard clatter of metal on metal informed her that either Iron Man or Warmachine had just landed upon the rooftop she'd just been occupying. She stuffed herself under an overhang. _I am nothing. I was a late-night visual processing artifact, a mistaken blip on your visor. I am nothing whatsoever._ She heard another gentle fwoom, and quickly dashed around the circumference of the tower, hiding herself on the opposite side. Another fwoom and she dashed back the way she'd come. By the barely-visible colors in her future reflections, the person looking for her was _Iron Man_.

"So I hate to break this to you, but you leave behind an infrared signature," a partially synthesized voice commented.

 _In the name of Cosmic Chaos, Wild: Improvise the shit off of this!_

"Yeah but I'm under-aged and totally not your type, and anyway my dad told me not to talk to strangers!" Wildcard shouted back as she hid her gecko claws in her backpack. "But if you promise to not be a lecherous old man about it, I will _consider_ letting you piggyback me back down to ground level! Cause, uh, I may have overestimated my upper arm strength when I decided this was a good idea. Maybe. Not that I won't be perfectly fine on my own! Because I'm totally a strong independent woman and stuff."

A gentle 'fwoom' brought the lightly illuminated armored hero into view. Though of course she couldn't see his facial expression, he seemed surprised to have stumbled upon a thrill-seeking kid instead of a suicide risk or potential problem. She looked him up and down (so much pretty gold and red, and hovering there so effortlessly!) and then sighed dramatically, and slid to her bum, and dangled her legs off the side of the ledge. "Well, great, I'm in trouble again. At least it could have been Captain America, that would have been _so_ much cooler," she told him petulantly.

A brief pause was followed up by a marvelously ardent certainty about the universe: " _Nobody_ who was out getting stuck on a skyscraper in the middle of the night, nonchalantly chatting up a super hero, whose witty banter is even remotely existential, much less _scathing,_ would ever, possibly, in any conception of the universe _—in ten million years—_ pick Captain America over me."

She stuck out her tongue between grinning teeth, and kicked her feet happily. "That's because there is literally no concept of the universe in which a bland knight-in-shining armor can out-compete a sarcastic, arrogant asshole," she admitted.

"Exactly! _God_. Thank you! Nearly freaked me out for a second there, _ick_." Huff. "Aren't you a little... _young_ to be cursing or something?"

Her eyes grew wide and innocent. "Yes, Mr. Stark, because you are a _fantastic_ role model for young people to idolize and _absolutely_ should be able to critique the behavioral problems of other people's emotionally maladjusted children when they clearly suffer from poor impulse control."

"Touche, snarky munchkin. Touche."

* * *

Joker was not in makeup, but he was unmistakably agitated and stalking his kitchen like a puma when she came in the front door. He paused at the sight of her, twitching. She took a deep breath, face blank, one hand behind her back. Then she let her expression split open into an honestly guilty expression.

"Okay, yeah, you're honestly going to kill me," she said. "But first I have a question: How the hell do you already know I did something stupid? You haven't even left the house. You had no idea where I was. I'm _allowed_ to run around unsupervised at night."

"Parent Senses were Tingling," he growled as he turned slowly to face her. He rested his hands against the back of a chair instead, clutching the wood until his finger were white-knuckled. "You haven't gone out on the town in months without either myself or Sandro. Your friend is presently in serious trouble. You took your catsuit and plenty of gear. You turned off your GPS. You did not inform me you were heading out. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda."

She blinked rapidly, once more awed and impressed by how _well_ her father could draw connections between dots. "Okay, that's seriously freaky; Have you ever considered getting a side-job as a private detective?"

He kneaded the back of the chair. "Stay on this conversation, squirt. All signs pointed to the possibility you would be engaging in _potentially_ _self-destructive behavior_ tonight. Where were you?"

"Potentially-! I'm not _self-destructive_ ," she protested.

He turned his head slightly and raised a brow, though he was not amused.

Wildcard reflected that she'd climbed up a skyscraper free-handed and _barely_ made it to the top, even with numerous stops to rest. "Okay, I am not _intentionally_ self-destructive," she amended. "But, never mind, you're right, I make bad choices when... um..."

"...Agitated?" her father supplied crisply.

"I climbed the Exchange Plaza tower," she said. "I thought it would be okay because it has all those tiers, right? Big mistake, I did not fully appreciate just how huge skyscrapers are."

He took a deep breath and steadied himself.

"Oh no! No, no no. don't relax yet," Wildcard warned as she left the door and came up to him. "It gets worse! You remember that conversation we had about staying away from 'anyone with money?' She showed him the object she was carrying: a tiny missile. She'd opened, disarmed it and torn out a lithium battery on the way home, to make sure it couldn't be used as a tracking device. "I have decided to justify this to myself by claiming I'm amassing a collection of autographs from billionaire playboys who have super powered armaments in their basements."

Her father looked at the missile which, if its red and gold plating hadn't already been a dead giveaway, now had the added bonus of ' _Tony Stark_ ' emblazoned on it in fresh permanent marker. Then he looked back up at her.

"Quick question," she thought to ask. "Does that new armor you're making for me diffuse infrared or radar or stuff?"

"Yes," her father answered gruffly without even needing to think about it.

"Well at least I can look forward to being more unnoticeable in the future." She took a big breath, and sighed wistfully. "Am I grounded?"

"Oh I require much more information than what you've given me before I'm even going to give you a definitive answer on whether we need to _skip town_. First of all, did you disable that?" He gestured to the autograph.

"Yes."

"Point in your favor. How did you get him to give it to you?"

"Well we ended up having a long conversation about our poor life choices and why we were both up in the middle of the night lollygagging on skyscrapers instead of doing important things with our lives. He told me I should probably try to adhere to a diurnal schedule and set normal schooling hours, and I told him alcohol was probably messing with his circadian rhythms and worsening his insomnia. He told me I was a hypocrite. I told him that was impossible because I was too young to drink and my biggest problems were still whether I wanted to be part of the Starbucks Hipster Scene or The Baggy Pants Skatergirl Scene, not whether I wanted to be an emotional retentive alcoholic ENTJ with deeply ingrained but woefully unacknowledged social acceptance issues. Naturally this segued into a discussion of Meyers-Briggs personality types and the ascribed strengths and weaknesses of each type."

The Joker blinked slowly and quietly at her. Wildcard began suspecting she _knew_ that face: That was her father's 'I find you to be the most fantastic thing on the planet but can't admit it yet because you're supposed to be in trouble' face."

"And how exactly did you get off the skyscraper, in the end?"

"I totally convinced him to give me a piggyback down. Like an _actual_ piggyback ride, too, like adults give children. Dad. Dad, I think I might accidentally be _adorable_ and _endearing_ instead of fierce and terrifying." Her eyes widened in mock horror.

He pinched her cheek. "You? Madness."

She pouted a moment. (Snarky _munchkin_ she'd been called!) but then she brightened up and offered him the missile. "Can we crack it back open and see how it's made?"

"Yes," her father agreed. "But tonight and tomorrow you're grounded and will be reading _Hamlet_ from dawn till dusk while I make absolutely sure this has no fallout."

Her expression dropped in _authentic_ horror this time.

He lifted a hand and cupped her cheek. "But, squirt? Well done. _That_ was the level of conversational dancing I expect of you, and it's going to let you dodge bullets the entire rest of your life. He might run your face against a database or two in innocent curiousity, but that'll get him nothing, and that man doesn't talk to our problem crowd. Classic difference of opinions on secret identities, you see."

She blinked at her father in confusion and surprise. Then a glow rose to her face, and despite all the mistakes she'd made, she felt _proud_.

* * *

Leo had come into the dojo to give Sandro a short break on Saturday, by sparring with Raphael; and Raphael had used kama to demonstrate various techniques against katana—until Leo had actually smacked Raphael on the shell with the flat of one blade; then Raphael had picked up his Sai and Sandro had watched with excitement and acute attention as the two brothers had _genuinely sparred,_ complete with taunting and inside jokes and a great deal of heavy cracks as one shell or another hit into the floor. The brothers both fought completely differently from one another and yet, despite that, no duel between them ever had a certain outcome.

Afterwards, Sandro had gone back to practicing kata against both of them, which had kept him _thoroughly_ busy. The training had been arduous, to say the least, but that was a _present_ rather than a punishment. The first time he'd succeed at executing a disarming maneuver, he'd been grinning so hard that Raphael had—of course—responded by disarming him bare-handed and then planting him back into the floor in an effort to smack the _cockiness_ out of him; but it hadn't been cockiness, hard as that was to explain, and Sandro had actually _laughed_. And as Sunday wound down to a close, Sandro felt exhausted to the core of every muscle and yet thoroughly content. He sat at the edge of the dojo, removing protective sparring gear.

"Raphael?" Sandro hadn't called him 'dad' in almost a year. Mom strongly disapproved and corrected him every time she heard it; Raphael didn't care in the least. All Raphael cared about is whether Sandro addressed his mother correctly, and Sandro always did. Mom was mom and Raphael was Raphael.

His father casually dropped a damp towel over his head to cool off with, and Sandro paused in taking off his shin-splints and gratefully wiped his face and neck down.

"Had a question?" Raphael prompted.

"Are you and mom going to be here for my birthday this year?"

"Yeah, ya mom took off the Friday and Monday around it. Why ask that? Ya still sore about last year? Ya only been told how it happened a million times and saw it plastered all over the news."

Sandro grimaced. The question came out in a moment of uncensored vulnerability: "Why'd you and mom even decide to have kids if you planned on being gone the whole time?"

" _Decide_!? Listen here kiddo, we didn't plan nothin. We made a _mistake_. We were just kids and didn't know shit, and had a whole bloody city to save on top of it."

 _We made a mistake.  
_ _We made— (You were a mistake, we didn't want children, and you were an incredibly badly timed obligation for all of us when we had loads more important things to be worried about.)_

Everything closed quietly back up like a hinged clam-shell. Sandro dropped the towel. He went back to getting off those shin splints. He didn't ask anything else.

Raphael tagged on something of a huffy threat, not that Sandro was really listening: "And I don't wanna hear ya ridin yer own ma _one more time_ for us all havin real work to do while aliens were trying to invade Statten Island last year, partic'lary when we made it up to you immediately afterward."

* * *

A long, long, lukewarm shower helped Sandro stabilize his mood before heading back out into the lair. The repeated rehashing of sentences in his head all fell away to a soft and quiet neutrality. He wasn't _content_ , but he was... calm again, at least. That was as good as it was going to get. He turned off the water.

He dressed and headed towards the kitchen to sniff out dinner, but then cringed internally when he realized he'd made the worst possible mistake: The dwindling time remaining in their 'weekend' had not gone unnoticed by his mother and she and Raphael were the only two people in the kitchen.

"Sandro, hon? I'd like to talk to you about the... circumstances of your grounding."

Oh god. Mom. Please. Not a good enough mood to handle this. _Can't tell her that, it's completely reasonable to want to talk to me about this._ What to do? _Disengage emotions_. He turned to dutifully face her, and complied: "Okay mom."

He did not notice Mikey turn off the television. He did not see Raphael perk up from where he'd been perusing the refrigerator.

"Sandro, you were going topside," she said, as if he somehow didn't know. "That's not okay, hon. Do you not understand how dangerous that was?"

"No, I understand." His voice was monotone, no matter how badly he wanted her to understand. "It's why I worked really hard to stay hidden." _Plus I made a friend. She looked out for me. Not that you'd approve of her._

His mother sighed and shook her head slightly, as if she did not know what to do with him. "Sandro you are only thirteen years old. Even normal children with nothing to hide have no business wandering around the streets at thirteen years old without their parents having any idea where they are."

He wrinkled his nose. What counted for 'normal' to his mother? Wildcard was certainly an extreme case, but there were loads of children who commuted, played in the streets, or road their bikes around in groups without parental oversight.

"You don't agree?" she questioned.

"I'm a gigantic teenage boy stuck in a sewer," he said. "So, normal or not, I guess I get restless and—"

"—So go for a run, or exercise, or play games, or spend time with your family! Sandro, do you think we make up special rules just to confine _you_ as if we don't somehow know what it's like to be teenagers? Your father and uncles were not allowed above-ground at your age. What's wrong? Why would you go looking for trouble trouble like that?"

"I _didn't_ go looking for trouble most of the time-"

"You did _for months_. You could have been killed, Sandro. Why are you playing at this when you have so many other opportunities? "

He stared vacantly at her. Through her. This conversation had been easier with Donatello, but for no reason that made any sense to him. _Okay, mom. Just say what you are going to say. I'm receptive._

"Sandro, please listen to me. There are more ways to find a place in the world than beating up thugs, many of which lead to you being actually able to financially support yourself. This is not what you need to be doing right now. You should be looking for something you really _enjoy_."

"I like being a ninja, mom."

"Sandro. Donatello is as much a ninja as anyone else, but he also has a doctorate in Software Engineering. Mikey is a ninja and does sequential illustration and creative writing. Your father is the reason you have clothing to wear. All of these would be much more useful expenditures of excess energy than daredevilry _at thirteen._ "

"My father is _the Nightwatcher_ ," Sandro protested, because 'superhero' was Raphael's profession regardless of his skill with automobiles, welding, tailoring or anything else; and Leonardo wasn't _anything_ other than a professional ninja.

"What does that have to do with anything? Your father is trying to keep this family safe and needs a cover disguise for when accidentally spotted from afar. But _you_ have opportunities we never had as children! _That's_ the point I'm trying to make."

His temper flared out where it was unwelcome (come _on_ Sandro, not with _mom_ ), and he grit his beak and made an effort to remain patient as he ground out: "I don't want to be a dentist, a professor of medieval studies, a world famous painter, or the president, mom. I'm a giant turtle and I want to-"

"Sandro, please, do not take that tone with me. You aren't just 'a giant turtle,' you are our son." He closed his mouth and deliberately did not clench his teeth so that she didn't have to see his emotions ( _so that she focused on his words instead_ ) and instead clenched his fists behind his back ( _not mad; not at her; stressed)._ "I... I know you get frustrated down here," his mother was saying when he managed to tune back in. "But _please_ , Sandro, take some time to think about what I've said."

Sandro leaned back, eating further words because he didn't want to upset her. This would talk into a fight about nothing, when his mom honestly _did_ want the best for him. To say nothing of how Raphael was barely three yards behind him, and triggering his father's temper would be the _worst_ imaginable capstone for the evening. _And there's so few hours left to get through._ "Okay, mom." He folded neatly. "You're right. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

 _Lie._ He'd been thinking a trillion thoughts, none of which it seemed he could get distilled into efficient-enough words at crucial junctures to actually mean anything to anyone. _Except Donatello and Mikey. And Wildcard._ Because Wildcard might have babbled on like a crazy person sometimes, but all he had to do was put her in a headlock or cover her face with one hand or yank her hair if he really wanted to talk. Or yell 'shut up, loudmouth.' Or just politely ask for her to tone it down for sixteen seconds. Or feed her something. Honestly the options were limitless. Thinking about her helped, somehow, though it made him desperately wish today (and this conversation) would go by faster so that he could check up on her and make sure she hadn't done anything stupid (or exciting. or both) while worrying about him.

"I know it's rough, hon. We'll talk more later," his mother smiled at him reassuringly and squeezed his arm.

Food. Sandro needed food. Food always improved his mood. Food and some solitude. He smiled uncomfortably after his mother as she turned and departed, and then he turned about and grabbed a bowl of pasta off the counter and strode away from the kitchen table to go sit in his room. He didn't slam the door behind himself; he closed it gently, quietly.

Raphael stayed paused before the open refrigerator, one hand upon the door and the other paused just in front of the beer he'd been heading for, now oblivious to the chill air leaking out. Michelangelo walked across his vision, headed for Donnie's lab. Raphael blinked. Then his fingers went for a can of Orange Crush instead. He stood and pushed the refrigerator closed, and then quietly walked up to Sandro's room, and slowly twisted the knob. _Silent_. He eased the door open.

Sandro had left the pasta on his nightstand, and was kneeling on the bed while hugging a dwarf crocodile. He was facing away from Raph, with his shaking fingers clenched white-knuckled into the pillow as a primitive stress ball or punching bag. Repressed, breathy noises preluded the first angry teardrops to hit the croc's scutes, as a confused and frustrated teenager struggled to regain some feeling of control over his universe.

 _Just_ past Sandro's shoulder, amidst a wall of aquariums housing a large collection of ball pythons, was an elderly tortoise nomming on a strawberry beneath a strip of old, curled, yellowed masking tape proudly labeled in red permanent marker with the name ' _Spike_.'

Raphael watched his son for a long moment. Then he took a deep, silent breath, and settled the can of soda onto the nightstand beside the pasta, and then silently backed out and pulled the door shut. He went back to get that beer, and found a seat on the couch. He took a swig, and another. Then he leaned forward and rubbed his face, and tried to decide what to do. Where to even begin.

* * *

[Author's Note] I suppose that means 'Slash' either doesn't exist in this universe, or else him being created from Spike was a zany story Mikey came up with for his comics. Which is fair, as I feel any animal suddenly given a humanoid brain would... basically just be like a child raised by wolves, and wouldn't be very intelligent.


	31. Ball of Sunshine

Sandro only came out of his bedroom to stay goodbye to his parents before the commute back to New York started late Sunday night, and then quickly returned to its solitude just as soon as they'd left.

Donatello poured himself a cup of decaf coffee and glanced worriedly at his nephew's closed door. He decided to give the boy some time to calm down, and see if he came out on his own before the evening truly ended. All-in-all the weekend had gone fairly well, but there was a chance that—if Donnie didn't talk to him—that poor conversation with April would be all Sandro remembered. Basic psychology: Donatello needed to coax him to store the good parts in long term memory instead of just the bad ones.

But Splinter must have been with them all, because Sandro did reemerge around the same time as Mikey and Leo returned with the dawn; even if the boy looked drained and came out to plop himself at the kitchen table and bury his face in his arms. He at least wanted to be around them all, and that was a good sign. Michelangelo reached him first and leaned over to rub his shell and shoulders. "Heeeyyy, how you doin, Lil Bro?" Mikey wondered. "Saw you clam up talking to April."

"I was in the lab for just _fifteen minutes_ mixing anti-fungal ointment," Donatello sighed apologetically as he settled into the seat beside them and sank into a facepalm. "Mikey filled me in."

"Lectures scare me, too!" Michelangelo whispered loudly. "Blame Leo!"

Sandro waved a hand feebly, absolving everyone of blame and honestly appreciating that they cared and had at least _acknowledged_ the trouble he was having. One day at a time...

Leo swatted Mikey gently as he passed, though the gesture was more affectionate than reproachful, and then wondered aloud, "Who has shell rot?" with regards to mention of the anti-fungal ointment.

"Raphael," Donatello droned irritably. "I've strongly recommended them to buy another humidifier. But if he's caught it _again_ , one of us might be a carrier, so everyone is under doctor's orders to pile into the showers for Epsom salts and a thorough brushing in... oh, half an hour. Sorry if that cuts into meditation time, _Leo,_ " he added after the fact and without sounding particularly sorry at all, but everyone—Leo included—did agree that this sounded like a fine way to de-stress before bed. Shells were the one thing no turtle could really inspect, mend, file, or bush on their own, and it had been awhile since they'd looked after one another.

"We're doing scrubby-dubby time!? Aw _yeesss_! I think I still have half a bottle of that bright pink bubble stuff!" Mikey realized with delight and Sandro and Donnie both groaned; their last experience with 'that bright pink bubble stuff' had involved bubbles _to the eaves_ and spilling out of the doorways. Mikey had been hysterically thrilled, but the clean-up had taken forever. "Wait a minute! Donnie! When am I going to get that _present_ you totally mental-note-promised-me while we were out sneaking?"

Donnie looked up at him tiredly. "Well, Mikey, I hadn't decided yet. Which would you prefer: regularly scheduled disbursements at preset hours, or that I use a random number generator to surprise you?"

Sandro lifted his head tiredly and squinted at his uncles. Donatello was affecting skepticism and annoyance over a cup of coffee. Michelangelo was smiling innocently with eyes twinkling brightly, and leaning forward over the table as if expectation of something. Leonardo appeared to be looking for a midnight snack. At long last, Donatello sighed dramatically, set down his decaff coffee, dusted off his lap, stood up, and opened his arms mechanically. Mikey catapulted over the table into him, giggling like a toddler. Donatello was tackled into the rear wall, gave a tremendous eye-roll, but then supplied a warm hug.

Sandro couldn't help but laugh lightly. He was starting to realize he honestly needed people to be touching his shell and shoulders and hugging him and reassuring him; needed them to be _demonstrating affection_ by means of physical contact. After months of getting used to Wildcard hanging off of him, he'd been left to wonder why touching someone had ever become unfamiliar in the first place; After all, he'd come from a family that always jostled, tackled, pranked, hi-fived (hi-threed), fought, hugged, groomed, and squished one another. So the only explanation for his worsening isolation was that _he'd_ been pulling away from everyone. Donatello was right: Half the burden of repairing all this was on his own shoulders, and he needed to meet everyone halfway. He had to refrain from shutting down. _Like I shut down with mom._ But that was different; Mom didn't know anything yet. _Fix one thing at a time._

Sandro looked past Mikey's shoulder, to Leo. Even in Sandro's earliest memories the Blue Turtle had always been quiet: His facial expressions perpetually suggested that he was lost in his own little world. But that wasn't so, and Leo was never oblivious; He'd know if a pin dropped four rooms away. Though Sandro had always found that kind of alertness awe-inspiring, was it possible Leo might know a thing or two about progressively worsening self-isolation?

A thought was dawning on Sandro: That April and Raphael's absence might have bothered his uncles more than they let on. While sparring with his father, Blue Leader's aloofness always gave way to teasing grins, glares, wry retorts and—occasionally— _laughter_. The two of them seemed to simultaneously _relate_ to one another on some special base level, and yet got on one-another's nerves so badly that perhaps even Leo found it hard to be a perfectly aloof, strong, silent ninj-

"NO NOT THE TOASTER!" Sandro shrieked in alarm and leaped to his feet, but it was too late and the worst had already happened: Leo had attempted to make himself a pop-tart.

The ensuing explosion blew the toaster's capacitors, covered the counter-top in soot, fried half the pop-tart, and spat out its handiwork as the appliance spun in a comical 360 and then collapsed on its side.

Donatello and Mikey slowly turned to regard Leonardo with tolerant condemnation as Leo, in a rare display of emotion, stared at them like a deer in headlights and then shrunk bashfully away from the scene of the crime.

" _Duuude_ ," Mikey crooned sympathetically. "The culinary gods just seriously hate ya, bro. What'd'ya _do_ in a past life, blow a chunk of cheese off the moon? Dump a landfill's worth of roaches into a _Sears Appliance_ store? Feed a senior home refried bean tacos? That last one's cold, bro. Just _cold_."

Leo's scientifically implausible degree of cooking misfortune didn't stop him from trying his luck every rare once in awhile, and Sandro knew of thirteen separate occasions on which he had either successfully toasted a pop-tart or managed to fry an egg and some bacon... ... It's just that those instances were heavily overshadowed in his memory by about eighty or ninety small kitchen fires, at least one of which had somehow happened to cold cereal and milk.

A puff of smoke belatedly coughed its way out of the toaster, which then—inexplicably—burst into flames.

Donatello pushed Mikey gently aside, sauntered over to the kitchen, picked up a fire extinguisher accurately labeled 'In case of Leo' (The one in the lab read 'In case of Mikey') and turned the nozzle towards the toaster. He hosed it down with flame retardant foam. The toaster fire settled down immediately, as if sensing that it was once more in safe and capable of hands

"Leo," Donnie said. "You cannot fix toasters, ovens, stove tops, blenders, salad spinners, can openers, coffee makers, microwaves, or rice cookers, yet nothing on earth seems to deter you from coming in here to break them."

The world's greatest ninja shifted awkwardly in place. "I was experimenting to see if my 'lucky pop-tarts' coincided with auspicious days as laid out according to the Japanese Zodiac."

"Your hypothesis has been invalidated," the genius transfixed with a stare. "Now get out of my kitchen, _Fearless_."

"I thought we agreed it's _my_ kitchen!" Mikey piped up. "You have _your_ lab!"

Leo started edging around them at a wide berth, but Sandro laughed, stood up, rounded the table, and ducked between them. "I'll fix the toaster for Leo," he promised. "Not like I have anything else to do until I get my internet back." _And my phone. Subtle nudge: When exactly will that be happening? Cause I should probably check on Wild._ He gathered up the injured appliance and wrapped up the cord, and then turned and looked curiously up at Leonardo. "Which almanac were you consulting, by the way?" Leo straightened in surprise at the question.

"Don't encourage him!" Mikey cackled and Donatello scolded simultaneously, and Leo ducked with a wince and an altogether unexpected grin turned Sandro's way. Sandro smiled back. Moments like this humanized Leo.

"I will set up the Epson salts, brushes, and incense, and run the water," Leo volunteered as a peace offering, and escaped to the showers, but the mention of incense aggravated an already suspicious Donatello:

"Do not use any sage!" Sage was one of the most common herbs in cleansing and healing incenses worldwide, but despite this (or perhaps because of it) it was also one of Donatello's top-five least favorite smells in the world (which may have been a territorial thing). This meant that times of illness or injury among the turtles were oft demarcated by over-the-top arguments between Blue and Purple over whether using herbs to keep away evil spirits was important for a speedy recovery. They fought over sage like other people fought over pineapples on pizza. "There is not a single research paper validating any medical property of sage! You have already fried my toaster this evening, and if I have to explain the idiocy of occult pseudoscience to you one more time, I swear-!"

"- _My_ toaster!" Mikey hollered after the departing turtle, and then cupped his hands around his mouth to project even louder (which was wholly unnecessary). "Use citrus, Leo! And make sure you put in the bubble stuff! But not too much! Just a wittle itty, litty bitty bit!"

Well, nothing in this family ever went _simply_ with so many incredibly different strong personalities afoot, but maybe that was why Sandro related to Wildcard so well. Time to get to work on that toaster everyone was hollering about.

* * *

Monday evening began, and Sandro's circadian rhythms told him he ought to be awake.

Was he late for something? He blinked sleepily across his rooms, where red basking lamps gave warm illumination to the reptile aquariums, and then quickly looked to his alarm clock. _Evening is almost here_. A little lightning bolt of excitement came up through his belly, but then flipped over and turned glum and wary. _I still haven't been given my phone back, and I can't go out._ Still, the rest of his family would be waking up soon. Leonardo would usually head out for patrol, and then Sandro might be able to talk to Donatello alone.

And Sandro had that sort of _bad feeling_ that said Wildcard might not have been as 'okay' with the fallout of this whole thing as she'd pretended to be, and he really wanted to get his phone back and to call her and tell her how everything had gone.

Time to get up either way. He could at least finish fixing that toaster.

A world away, and Wildcard was silently donning her night outfit. She could hear her father turn on the television downstairs, and the cover noise made things easier. She selected her knives, and slipped them one at a time into her sleeves and the holsters along her torso. Her father hadn't asked for the gecko claws back—the climbing gear—and a glance in her backpack told her they were still inside. She took out old plastic bottles and eased in fresh ones filled with water.

A skyscraper had been too much, and far too noticeable, but there were plenty of other sheer climbing surfaces which had just become newly surmountable, and she had some fun ideas for how to get in many places she oughtn't. Time to test those out! HeHeHe! She opened up her bedroom window.

Her phone buzzed, and she glanced over at it curiously as she tightened the straps of her suit and lifted her backpack. Hmm. She reached over to silence the phone, but her fingers paused upon the glass and she furrowed a brow. Wildcard's eyes widened, and a cool and tingly sensation exploded over her scalp like a cracked egg. She snatched up the phone to answer.

" _Michelangelo_?!" she demanded.

"Wow, right-on!" the orange turtle laughed. "How'd ya know!?"

She dropped her backpack to her bed, feeling as light and bright as sunshine. "Your phone numbers were all bought as part of a family plan, and only differ by a _digit_ and whoever distributed them did so according to seniority," she announced triumphantly. "I saw it the first time I looked at Sandro's contact list! You're 'seven,' Donnie is 'eight' etc etc."

"Whaa! That's not fair, I was totally unaware you were a _detective,_ or else I would have used my ninja to be way more impressive and sneaky and stuff! Honest!"

She snickered, air-headed, at just how _fantastic_ Mikey's juvenile and spunky humor was."H-how's Sandro?"

"Hmm, not sure... wanna see for yourself?"

She straightened. "He's grounded. He's surely grounded?"

"Oh _yeah_ , that's _right_ , buumm _merrr_... Wait! Wait, I just had a brilliant beyond brilliant idea! Ready? Okay, here it is: What if I just _coincidentally invited you_ to see where we live!? I can totally say I just wanted free pizza, and I won't even have to lie! Donnie will never see it coming. It's _foolproof_...!"

Wildcard didn't know whether to collapse into fits of laughing, burst out crying, or raise the roof. She hugged herself. "You and Donatello are inviting me to come... visit?"

"Sure! I mean, like, we're a little used to being, ya know, ninjas in a sewer, so we're kinda paranoid sometimes; but then I remembered normal families arrange play-dates for their kids and stuff, right? If not, I _totally_ blame the net for misleading me, yo!"

Even as she was essentially rocking herself, she didn't expect the sob which hit her voice. "That s-sounds wonderful."

"Oh crap. Are you crying? Don't cry."

"I'm-I'm just... I just know where to get the best pizza in Jersey, is all! And I know for a _fact_ they don't deliver."

A hesitant pause on the other side suggested that Michelangelo hadn't bought the bluff but didn't know entirely what to do about it; and she hardly blamed him, as it wasn't like crying made much sense in context. "Didn't you like _just_ move here?" he asked at last. "How could you possibly know the Best Pizza in Jersey?

"It's _Razza's_ ," she pronounced victoriously.

"Holy chalupa! We're really going to have _Razza's_ tonight...!?" He sounded like he'd spaced out, drooling, into an anticipatory foodiphile braingasm.

"Mikey, focus! I need to make a good impression! Do I get five large-sized pies, or six? What are yours and/or Donatello's favorite toppings? Cheese or extra cheese? Is everyone actually and equally obsessed with Orange Crush?!"

"Ooh, ooh, I know this! Six! Pepperoni, chili peppers, marshmallow, and hot fudge! Mushrooms, olives, and charbroiled salmon! Extra! Leo likes ginger ale but he's not here!"

Notes were taken. "Oh this is gonna be good. Give me forty-five minutes! Assuming there are no unexpectedly displeased adults or unforeseen pizza-related disasters, I'll call back to ask where to meet you."

"Aw yesss, plan in motion, yo! Oh, hey, hey! Remind me not to eat any on the way home, Donnie'll yell at me for not letting him scan it for poisons first. With you being a 'unknown variable' who might be trying to kill us and all."

"No sweat, I've got your back; I'll just be the first one to get to try your weirdo hot-fudge pizza, is all, no big." He squeaked in horror, and she ended the call on him with a manically evil giggle.

Silence spread across her bedroom, silence and the rapid thumping of her heartbeat. Had that really just happened? _Sandro! Sandro-Sandro-Sandro-Sandro!_ She looked down at the backpack she'd been ready to take out on the town. Nothing she needed in there. She tossed it off to the side, and then started stripping herself of excess knives and explosives. Where was her other backpack? She got up to feel and fished it out of her closet, and took out a hoodie and some proper pants while she was at it.

"Dad!" she called, in an effort to get her voice to carry downstairs and pierce the noise of the television.

"Yes?" came a curious inquiry from entirely the wrong direction, and Wildcard nearly leaped out of her skin. She swiveled around to find Joker perched casually in her window, wearing a deeply hooded blue jean jacket with one leg looped outside.

"Holy sh— _shell_." Saved from a curse word. Her brain fired up backup generators to figure out how or why he was in his present location. _Apparently_ , her father had turned on the television downstairs to cover up that he was no longer in the house, and had looped around to the back of the house. "Uh, c-can I have permission to visit Sandro's family and their secret underground ninja lair?"

"Permission?" Acid eyes gleamed up at her. "You know, the only motive _you_ have to sneak out a window," he tapped the open frame with a knuckle, "when you already have free reign of the city, is if you were going to toy with breaking your end of our deal _again_. How interesting it is," he added, "that in the span of _one_ phone call, you should about-face from heady aspirations of wild delinquency, to blithely requesting permission to attend an innocent and adult-supervised play-date with a friend your own age."

"You were going to shadow me," she realized. _To make sure I held to my promises. To protect me, if necessary._ Her fingers curled into her palms.

"Yes." He didn't even try to hide it; and she ducked her head in the realization she must have been acting very strange. "But now I _can't_ , can I? You are heading into the equivalent of a bunker. I have to simply trust you: To trust in your assessment of an elusive 'super hero' family, to trust they would never bring harm onto a child, to trust you can protect your identity."

"There's nothing to hide," Wildcard mimicked slowly. "I'm neither part of an evil ninja clan nor attempting to bring about an extra-dimensional alien invasion."

Her father smirked. He shook his head gently, and then leaned back and smiled at her with a sadness she didn't understand. "Have fun, squirt. Be safe."

* * *

Wildcard didn't always get along with other children, but a few tattooed and hooded skateboarders skated near to ask how her brother was, whether she'd come to watch them do their parkour moves later, and why she didn't ever use her board to get from A to B on her travels (And that last one was a good question! Why hadn't she thought of that?) It was nice to have these passing acquaintances, even as her relationship with all of them would always be shallow. New Jersey really was starting to feel like home.

The skateboarders were darlings, and she waved them onward. Then a nagging feeling hit her about some girls that had followed her down from a corner. She ordered her pizzas, waited for them to cook, and politely reassured the owner that, yes, she could carry six pies and four sodas. She was just that badass. But could he please put the sodas in a bag? Thank you very much.

Gourmet pizza steamed enticingly out from the confines of its tidy white boxes piled up to her chin as she headed down the street. Behind her, three sets of footsteps drew closer, and closer; and Wildcard grew more annoyed. At last she heaved a great sigh and set her pizzas onto a roadside bench, and turned back to face her pursuers while she settled down the bag of sodas. _Speaking of 'like home.'_

"That sure is a lot of food, dere," one girl with fantastic bubblegum colored hair said sweetly, flashing a long, sharp knife. "Wouldn' happen to have any cash leftover, now would yous, lollipop?"

Wildcard drew out her switchblade, and gave it a toss to open it. "Not enough to pay for your stitches."

"Oh-ho. Yous wanna end up in a morgue by mornin, lolly?"

"Does it matter to you, if one of you ends up in the hospital? Go on, tell your girls to hold me still for ya. Promise them you'll kill me, see if it makes them feel any better about the tracks of red I dig all over 'em." A smile stretched her face, but she unexpectedly thought of Sandro.

"What yous laughin at?" The center girl stepped forward, turning over her knife. "Yous think I need help with a lil cunt like you?" Her backup chicks clearly had no problem with her threatening a _child_ at knife-point at seven in the evening in the middle of a street where anyone might see. _With friends like these.._

Wildcard licked her bottom lip, corner to corner. "You should smile more, _uke._ "

The girl lunged at her, one hand ready to try and snatch her switchblade arm by the wrist, the other posed to dive that knife down for a quick little stab. Wildcard circle-stepped to the left, grabbed the stabbing arm, and flipped the stupid teenager hard onto her back on the concrete. By the heavy thud and the screech which followed, _somebody_ hadn't been practicing their flips and rolls. Three girls came at her, two from the front and one struggling to get up from the side and slashing out at her legs. Wildcard danced up the side of the bench, grabbed a throwing knife from her sleeves, and flung it down with a hard enough spin to make her attackers recoil in surprise. The fallen girl's switchblade was struck from her hand with a splatter of red and another shriek.

She could leave so much white space. So many fewer choices. So much _easier_ to be safe, to be sure.

"Get away from me," she threatened, crouched atop the back of the bench. She flicked the switchblade so it made a sharp snapping noise. "I will open _smiles_ in your faces no amount of makeup will ever fix."

But, unfortunately, no seventeen year old heroine addicts wanted to run away from children, and girls sometimes seemed to have more to prove to the universe than boys did. They lobbed some fantastically vulgar insults at her and helped up their ring-leader, facing her with uncertainty. Wildcard _hissed_ and gestured with the switchblade that they should beat it, quickly.

"Hey yo, is there a problem?" a familiar and jovial voice inquired from down the street.

"This crazy kid attacked us and is tryin' ta steal our food or some shit!" one of the girls shouted with a point. "Bitch threw a knife at us!"

"Oh really?" The 'man' who stepped into the light wore a cocky grin, the chain of his nunchaku draped comfortably over his shoulder, and _absolutely_ no shirt whatsoever. He was seven feet tall, and probably would have weighed much more than an NFL quarterback even without the beautiful brown shell which flared out in jagged little points about his hips and tailbone. His plastron was jet black with golden-orange patterns down the sides, like the halos of candle flames. "Cause what I _think_ I saw was some wannabee Silver Panthers picking on kids again, and all this mention of food's left me a little hungry, so... Do panthers taste like bacon? Honest question!"

"M-monster-?!" shrieked one, but the other two were already backtracking horror. They spun about, stumbling over one another in their haste to get back to a main street, two of them saving their breath for running as the other babbled something about aliens and monsters.

Wildcard slumped and eased her feet down onto the bench, sitting on its backboard for a moment and taking a deep breath. "You didn't have to do that," she breathed. "Expose yourself, I mean. They were going to give up."

Mikey was almost scarily _silent_ as he walked, but his chuckle drew her attention up and told her he'd come up just beside the bench to have a better look at her. "Hey, the underground here knows about _me_. Plus if it keeps them scared of trouble-making in the future, I've done my job! Three fewer Panthers." He cocked his head to the side, looking her up and down, and she lifted her head... and _stared_. She couldn't help it. He had _beautifully_ bright blue eyes, and a perpetually cheeky expression that belied the fact he must have been at least thirty years old. Were those _freckles_? There were definitely speckles of red-brown pigment against otherwise yellowish green skin. "You really are _tiny_ ," he marveled wondrously.

 _Do not spontaneously hug a near-stranger, Ana._ She swallowed and then belatedly retorted: "Or you're gigantic."

"Might be a bit of both-and, instead of either-or!" Whenever he smiled, it lit up his entire face. Hell, it lit up the air around him. He was like the spiritual incarnation of honey and sunlight, and it was sort of beautiful. "I'm Michelangelo." He offered a hand to shake.

"I'm Wildcard-" She blinked at the proffered appendage, and then looked up to him, chagrined. "Wait, you actually have _three fingers_?" And then, because they'd been offered to her, she had to grab at them and have a look. "I assumed that was a cartoonist's convention, along with everything—everything else!"

"Nope! Three it is!" He wiggled them slyly.

Wild grinned and shook the hand as had been intended. "But Sandro has five!"

"Sandro's mama's human!" Mikey reminded her. "He's a little different. Or as Donnie says, 'He has fewer loose ends which needed to be resolved ad hoc by the pattern-aware synthase redundancies of the mutagen.'"

Wildcard nearly died, because which she couldn't really say if Mikey's suddenly straight-backed, cross-armed, and heavy-lidded impression of his older brother was spot-on or not, it was _absolutely_ full of character. She hopped off the bench, and reached out to her bag of sodas. "C-can you help me with the p-pizza?" she wheezed past laughs. "I couldn't run away while carrying so much."

"No problemo, Tiny Chick! They stack almost taller than you are." He winked. She stuck her tongue out at him. He was delighted. "C'mon, though, we need to go before we're seen together; I don't want anyone harassing you later, thinking that you know us. Which you do now, I guess? Man it's been forever since we've had a new guest...!"

"Does Sandro know we're coming?" she asked with a glance at her phone. "He just texted me to say he's just gotten his phone back."

"Not if Donatello hasn't told him the plan yet! We're kinda early. I was thinking we might..." he trailed off mischievously.

Wildcard grinned up at him. "... surprise him? I'm _in._ "

" _Aw yeah!_ " He lowered a hand, fingers outstretched, and she delivered the hi-five/hi-three with enthusiasm. "Booya! Oh! I should probably fill you in on what went down Saturday. There was a change in plan after you talked him into stuff."

* * *

Donatello came up to see Sandro was putting the last finishing touches on the repaired toaster. "Leonardo mentioned Raphael went temper-free over your lessons. How was yesterday?"

"It was fine," Sandro said, picking up a screwdriver. "Sorry I snapped at mom afterwards. I was hungry and tired and not in the mood to talk."

"Hey," Donatello tapped the apex of his shell. "You don't have to roll over and pretend everything is okay with me anymore, remember?"

Maybe bad habits died hard, and Sandro wasn't sure how to start talking any other way. Still, he _was_ feeling a lot better, and a lot more comfortable. He nodded. "Okay. But... where do I start?"

"I'm to understand that rather quickly segued into the topic of _professions_ , for some reason?"

But before Sandro could answer, the front door swung open via Michelangelo's kick, and the orange turtle hollered excitedly: "Hey guys we're eatin' Razza's tonight, can you believe it!? Six extra large pies!"

"What?" Donatello stood up from where he'd been hovering over Sandro. "Mikey you were supposed to be out waiting for my signal," the purple turtle fumbled in dismay. "How did you _possibly_ manage to get side-tracked from your own master plan?"

"Razza's?" Sandro frowned, lifting his head though he wasn't facing the door. "Razza's is a sit-down restaurant, who went inside?"

And it was a female voice that answered him: "I had to live up to my alias!"

Sandro dropped his screwdriver, shoved his chair back, stood, and spun about to lay eyes on her. She'd just come through the door after Mikey and was carrying bottles of soda, and she was dressed in rain boots, baggy pants, and a Spider-Man hoodie.

"Hi!" Wildcard beamed, smiling so wide and authentically that her hazel eyes were nearly green.

"Mikey..." Donatello growled, because some crucial steps of this plan had apparently happened incorrectly, but Sandro bolted across the room so fast he was nearly skidding as he reached the door, and he not only threw both arms about Wildcard just to hug her, but outright hoisted her clear off the ground and spun about with her.

"Eeyy! Ee! Am I a princess today? Somebody's happy to see me! And not even in a 'Hey handsome, is that a sai in your pocket?' sort of way...!"

"Shut up shut up shut up," he groaned feebly, and squeezed her tight into his plastron and shoulder.


	32. Littlest Bro

He'd spun her about! _Ha!_

"Somebody's happy to see me! And not even in a 'Hey handsome, is that a sai in your pocket?' sort of way...!"

"Shut up shut up shut up," he groaned, squeezing her tightly to his plastron and shoulder.

She obliged, sagging into the gloss of his carapace and the heat of living flesh at the crook of his neck. _Sandro._ Then she giggled mischievously and kicked at the air. "I can't hug you with eight liters of soda and my arms pinned to the side, dummy! Here, you can have a nonexistent-ear kissy instead. Muah!"

Nonexistent-ear kissies were apparently gross enough to offend her testy teenage terrapin, because Sandro made a disgusted noise and set her back on her feet. Still, the wrinkle of annoyance on his snout barely lasted an instant. "How are you _here_?" He took some of the soda bottles from her as Mikey went to deposit those pizzas.

"Your fan _tab_ ulous uncles invited me!" she explained. "I've resolved myself to be on my best behavior!"

Sandro paused and stared through her head as if in search of gray matter. Then he leaned close and whispered, "You're off to a great start."

Wildcard had been in the household only sixty seconds and yet already made a penis joke. "Wow, what do you think my _worst_ behavior looks like?"

"Maybe let's never find out." Sandro turned towards the dining table, where Orange and Purple were sharing quiet words in Japanese. By Donatello's annoyed but tolerant expression, he'd sanctioned the visit. Sandro stared for a moment, heartrate still fast. _You did this for me?_ He took a deep breath, and then whispered to his newly reunited companion, "Come on. Let me do the talking." Ana bobbed her head in understanding and followed close at heel.

"Uncle Donatello?" he broached, and his uncles turned to him as he approached and settled the soda bottles onto the table. Sandro took some peculiar comfort in how Wild stayed behind him (as if he could somehow protect her there?) "Please permit me to introduce you to my friend, Anastasia Hamilton, whom everyone calls 'Wildcard.' Wild... this is my uncle, Hamato Donatello. And you've met Michelangelo, I think?"

Wildcard had certainly met Michelangelo, but she peered up at Donatello in awe. He was slender, but had another six or seven inches in height on his brother. Beside his uncles, Sandro did really look like a juvenile for once. "Hi," she murmured shyly, and gave a little wave. Which was probably for the best, because if they properly unstoppered her she might chatter excitedly about everything and anything under the sun, and loudly, and no one else would get a word in edgewise-!

Donatello studied her guardedly.

Oh. Wildcard's stomach sank. As she looked up at the bespectacled, svelte turtle, standing there in a mix of polyester fabrics and samurai panel armor fabricated from electronics, with the purple tails of his mask draping down over his shoulders, and multi-vision goggles straight out of _Splinter Cell_ perched upon his brow, she felt just a wee bit weak in the knees. _Just a bit_. Old fangirl reflex, perhaps? Because when it came to 'favorite characters,' the person one identified with most with (Orange!) often took a back seat behind the person whose attributes one _most admired_. But now a heart-wrenching truth was instantly clear:

Donatello did not like her. At all.

It was written in the clinical way he studied her, as if she were a curiousity picked out from a landfill that didn't look like it'd clean up particularly well. Mikey seemed genuinely curious about _her_ , as if he would have liked her regardless of Sandro's existence; but Donatello had agreed to go along with this plan for Sandro's sake, and for Sandro's sake alone—and only for so long as he thought it might be best for the boy. Which meant she needed to present herself as a worthwhile investment, or things might get ugly...

"Hello, Anastasia," Donatello greeted at last, voice subdued. "We've heard a lot about you from Sandro, lately." The implied 'and only lately' was an admonition and a prompt, but Sandro reached out to catch her arm almost protectively, and that reminded Wildcard to let _him_ do the talking.

"Uncle, I know I have sorely disappointed you by sneaking topside," Sandro said, in a tone that could only be described as filial fealty, "but please forgive Ana for her involvement. I know the comments she made over the phone might have made it seem like she was goading me to do dangerous things, but the truth is we did not go looking for trouble. She was the one positioning herself as storm-breaker to catch people from running into me or talking to me, no matter where we went. And we never went anywhere we didn't plan ahead for."

"Well. Be that as it may, those sorts of adventures are _over_ ," Donatello reminded him quietly but firmly

Wildcard felt the wince which tingled through Sandro's body, and she wondered what 'change' he was trying to affect in Donatello's stance or body language, but Sandro inclined his head respectfully as if having expected this. "I know," the boy said. "But Wild is highly athletic and I had started tutoring her in basic ninjitsu, even if we never had a real place to practice. And I wanted to ask if—if she really is allowed to visit today—may I show her the dojo after we eat?"

This was the innocent question which somehow deflated Donatello. "Of course, Sandro, we... invited her over so that... the two of you could spend time together in a safe setting. Not like a person visits a _death row inmate_ for the last time."

Sandro squeezed her arm gently. "Thank you." Just two words, Wildcard thought, but they sounded so _ardent_.

Donatello sighed, but seemed to have 'come around' or 'loosened up' a bit or something. He moved around the table. "Just... give me a moment to test this pizza and scan her for peculiarities." He raised a gauntlet, which lit up with a blue display.

Wildcard perked up at his approach. "Is this a good time to mention I always have some throwing knives and a switch blade for self-defense?" Donatello blinked down at her in surprise, but Mikey had her back:

"Oh yeah, D, she's not kiddin, she nearly got robbed just a few minutes ago just while carryin all that pizza! You shoulda seen her scaring them off, was adorable, yo, she's so _tiny_!"

"I... see," Donatello cleared his throat as Sandro glanced to Wildcard in concern. "Anything else you're carrying that I should know about?"

Wildcard pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Two small explosive devices that are only strong enough to covered a three-meter spread in glitter." Mikey nearly choked. "Oh! And a disarmed smart missile."

Sandro turned to her. "A _what_?"

She looked up to her friend with wide eyes. "I was grounded all weekend for—ah—let's call it ' _advanced shenanigans_.' You will _never_ believe what happened. Never! I got another autograph."

The young turtle straightened. "After knowing you for a handful of months I can safely say the realm of things I am willing to believe in has been extensively broadened." He glanced at Donatello. "Also I think we now all need an explanation for why there is a missile in our house, regardless of its state of operation."

"Well-!" She flailed her arms in excitement. "I met another superhero Saturday when I climbed the Exchange Plaza tower! You know, the skyscraper with all the tiers?"

"When you _what_!? What do you mean you climbed the-!?"

"With these awesome-sauce suction cup things, Sandro, keep up, _gosh_!" Her enthusiastic gesticulations betrayed her mental state. "And then I got to the top and I'm like 'Hoolyyy sheeet the rock wall and all the pull ups in the world did not sufficiently prepare me for dis, my arms are jelly, how the hell am I going to get down?'"

"W-with a _winch_ I should hope!?"

"Pfft, like I brought a rappel device; what was I going to affix anything to? How was I going to carry that much rope? Was I going to drive pitons into the glass? Anyway! While I was enjoying the breeze and trying to figure out how the hell I was going to get down-!"

No adult had to interject to explain what was wrong with this story: "YA CLIMBED A FUCKIN' SKYSCRAPER WIT' NO SAFETY EQUIPMENT!?"

"-and then all of a sudden I find out _Ironman_ was apparently over Jersey and wondering what the hell that little heat signal was on top of a skyscraper, because man did I get a surprise! And I _did_ try to hide, but he called me out, and anyway we ended up having a really long conversation about life and I asked for an autograph and he gave me one of his smart mi-"

"I was gone for FOUR DAYS!" Sandro loomed over her, hands raised in incredulous anger. _"Just FOUR DAYS!"_

"Look in my defense, this all totally made perfect sense to me at the time," Wildcard gave a tremendously winning smile/shrug-combo. "Now I may have been subconsciously misdirecting my anxiety over getting you grounded into the notion that I should be in some form of matching trouble, but as that sounds incredibly absurd in retrospect, I'm going to instead resort to the explanation that _normally_ I would have a very level-headed turtle around to remind me why all this sounded like a terrible plan."

"I'm na hearin' a _plan_ , I'm hearin' of a reckless MANIAC havin' a _batshit_ impulsive guilt-trip _on top of a goddamn bloody skyscraper_!"

Wildcard raised a finger to argue with him, paused, thought about it, and then sank bashfully back and scuffed her feet. "I'm hurt you'd presume I couldn't make the climb."

"YER PHYSICAL FITNESS QUOTIENT AIN'T GOT ANY BEARIN' ON WHETHER THAT WAS A STUPID-ASS THING THAT NEVAH SHOULDA EVEN ENTERED YA MIND TA BEGIN W-!"

" _O-KAY_!" she threw up her arms with a shriek. "You win! You win, you win, you win!" she stomped and crossed her arms and turned away, and huffed. "Once more confusing me as to our respective gender roles as I'm pretty sure women are supposed to always be right, but you somehow win every single argument, _ever_."

Sandro slapped a hand over his face. He stood there, shaking and livid for a moment. "Yeah. Cause you couldn't just cede the conversation gracefully, ya had ta tack that on the end there."

She glanced up at him, and then winked and shrugged, already recovering. "Of course, big _brother._ _Naturally._ " Neither child saw how excited Michelangelo had become, or the glance he shot Donatello.

" _No_." Sandro stepped into her, and reached down, and grabbed her shoulders, and leaned to stare her straight in the face. "No, no, and _no_. Never, _ever_ , do that again, Wild," he growled, searching her face for some semblance she understood that she'd gone above and beyond sane thresholds for 'acting out.' "Do ya hear me? 'Xactly how'd ya think ah'd feel if I'd turned the news on t'day and seen yer corpse splattered at the bottom of that tower?" She stared up at him uncertainly, and he lifted his hands to her face, to her cheeks and temples. Her brows wrinkled. A moment of silence passed between them. Then she lowered her gaze, and crumpled a little, and their foreheads briefly touched. He heaved a knowing sigh, and pulled her close. _I'm here._

"I'm sorry," she murmured as he felt her lean into his plastron and dig her fingers into the ridges of his carapace. Wildcard had two people in the world, just _two_ , and somehow it made a weird form of sense that she should throw an erratic and energetic panic attack over losing contact with him. "I'm _actually_ sorry."

He sank back on his heels, pulled her under his chin and wrapped both arms comfortably around her. _Mine. Safe._ There was a tremendous release of tension in that. "Yeah, ya'd better be, or I'mma deck ya so hard."

 _"Awww...!"_ Michelangelo's voice (and approval?) nearly shocked Sandro out of his skin, and then the realization dawned that his uncles were still just behind him and had born perfect witnessed to both Wildcard-being-psychotic and Sandro-completely-losing-his-temper. He was so used to being _alone_ with her.

"Uh..." Sandro slowly released his clown to turn and peer hesitantly back at an unexpectedly starry-eyed Michelangelo, and an alarmed and bewildered Donatello. _Shell_. Sandro cleared his throat and quickly decided—now that she'd been brought back down to earth—Anastasia's gift for jabber might be able to salvage the situation before anyone else had time to recover. "What did that story have to do with a missile, by teh way?" He prompted with an inclusive glance back down to her. She hastily rubbed unshed tears from her eyes.

"Oh. Right. Give me a second, I'll just show you," she pulled her backpack from her shoulder and unzippered it to rummage within. A moment later she produced a small gold-and-red-plated missile, signed in crisp black cursive, and passed it up to him "See? An autograph! The electronics are still inside, but that's all; If it had a tracking beacon, removing the battery disabled it."

"He gave you a _live missile_?" Donatello could scarcely believe.

"Oh, of course," Sandro easily believed, "only you _would_ somehow get someone to sign a missile for you." He twisted it open, and peered curiously at the circuit board inside.

"My convincing-hood serves as cosmic balance to your always-right-ness," his companion cooed, but then leaned over and peered curiously down into her own backpack. "I don't think I brought anything else dangerous, did I? Schoolbooks, cosmetic- Oh yeeaaah. Michelangelo?" She pulled out a bundle of black silk and unfolded it; silk was one of the best ways to safely store sharp-edged objects. She extracted the black, bat-shaped throwing star from within, and held it up for the orange turtle to see.

The orange turtle straightened and then darted around Donnie to get to her. "Ho-ly _chalupa_ , it's really _real?_ "

Her smile came back, innocent and wide, as she fed the throwing star into the hands of the big, curious turtle.

"It really is a-?" He picked it up gently. "Oh. My. God. OMIGOD! Omigodthisisupercool! Donnie! Look! Lookielookielookie!"

Sandro resisted the urge to lean on Wildcard to steady himself because he wasn't certain how Donnie would interpret him being... huggy. Instead he glanced into her backpack. He'd heard her say 'cosmetics,' and wondered if that might—later—be a useful tool for convincing Donatello that not all of Wildcard's plans were terrible. And she was good in the maths and sciences, which ought to have made a good foundation for getting Donnie to like her, right? But, as Sandro lifted his gaze slowly back to Donatello, he was very conscious of his uncle's critical and sharp-eyed frown. Don had lived with Mikey too long to let hurricanes distract him from details, and Sandro doubted she'd made a great first impression.

A little panic writhed through his belly, at the thought of having another conversation with an adult who had already made up their mind. _Stop panicking._ _Donnie wouldn't do that._ _Just breathe._ But maybe it was time to get Wildcard to stop talking for a bit, and stop front-loading too much information. Pizza. _Get everyone to sit down and eat._ Sandro straightened and reached out to touch Donatello's arm. "You could probably scan her now, she's distracted and might actually sit still for fifteen seconds."

Aha! Donatello's slight expression change suggested that phrasing had disarmed him a bit.

* * *

The spread of gloriously hot and delicious-smelling Razza's pizza laid out over the kitchen top would have improved the mood of anyone. Mikey felt a little guilty Leo wasn't there to enjoy it. As Sandro directed Wildcard to leave her shoes by the door and take a seat, they had a funny little argument about 'booster seats.' Donatello thanked her for the pizza and offered to reimburse her (six extra large gourmet pizzas was expensive) but she promised it was a gift. Honestly Mikey was a bit distracted! Each box contained a different sort of pie as he opened them:

1\. Donnie's Mushrooms, olives, and salmon;  
2\. Mikey's own splendid confectionary of sweet and spicy;  
3\. An elaborately dressed veggie pizza with a healthy dosage of spinache and medallions of mozzarella melted over tomato slices to make a second layer of cheese;  
4\. A nine-cheese exotic gourmet, with cherry tomato wedges and goat cheese crumbles on top;  
5\. A standard supreme;  
6\. And a Hawaiian!

So many options on just one table! His and Donatello's chosen pies were obvious, but he glanced up from his box in surprise when Wild and Sandro went for the same exact pizza. Wildcard frowned as if perplexed. Then her eyes widened. " _Impossible,_ " she announced.

"Impossible?" Sandro wondered.

"Statistically improbable," she amended haughtily. _Tehe! Why doesn't Don like her yet?_

"Wait a minute, let me see if I understand this," Sandro leaned his elbows on the table and raised his hands for visualization purposes. "You and I have eaten a lot of pizza. But as I have never once asked for any specific topping, and you have always ordered for us, today you suddenly realized don't know what my favorite kind of pizza is. So you showed up here with _three_ different pizzas, on every extreme of the pizza-spectrum—plain cheese, everything-on-it, and pineapples—in an effort to finally pin down what my favorite kind is?"

She glanced from side to side as if caught red-handed (so cute!), "Yes."

"And it somehow _hasn't_ occurred to you that the reason I've never requested a different kind of pizza is because I like the way you order pizza?"

She leaned back. "You have a small army of people who can eat two pizzas each, who order every conceivable form of topping—" she gestured with an open hand at Michelangelo to support her statement, which was _so_ accurate, "—and you're telling me my elaborate veggie combos won out on all that competition? I'm not even consistent!"

"Perhaps," Sandro broke the pie into wedges, "I appreciate your palette for gourmet cooking. When you're not trying to break world records on how many inches of cheese you can get on top of a single pie, that is."

Wild straightened, peered around at them, and then rapidly fanned herself with her hands. "Oh my god this is like being watched on Twitter or subscribed to on Youtube but like a billion times better." _Snerk!_

"It's good to have you back, Miss Crazy Pants," Sandro winked as he handed her a slice. "Anyway you need me to eat half of it if you're going to have enough room to try all the other pies."

She snapped her fingers and pointed at him as if saying, 'oh yeah, great point,' and then took the slice and chowed down. He poured her some Dr. Pepper, like someone else might make sure everyone's teacups were filled. Mikey grinned into his _fantastic_ hot-fudge and chili drizzled pizza, and wondered how much of each of them had ended up becoming part of Sandro. This bit—monopolizing someone else's space to help or rebuke them—reminded Mikey keenly of Leo.

"Do you have a curfew by which you need to be home, Anastasia?" Don asked, which seemed an odd question to direct towards someone who _very obviously didn't_.

"No. I just woke up. I usually stay outside at night. S'long as I do my coursework somewhere in there, dad doesn't care."

"You don't seem to have much adult oversight in general," the genius drawled, and Mikey bemusedly recalled April hadn't either. Holding anyone to higher-than-April standards seemed mean. "How did your father even find out about the skyscraper incident?"

"I told him. I'm supposed to be honest about the big stuff. He's too busy to keep tabs on me, and I'm a bit of a handful, but I do promise him to keep out of trouble."

Donatello frowned at her. "And your mother...?"

She shrugged as if nothing was any big deal. "It's just me and my dad." As it had been for April, as it was now for Casey's daughter Shadow, and as it had been for _them_ , though they'd at least had each other. Their extended circle of acquaintances had a shortage of moms! What was up with that? April was the _only one_ , yo, she deserved a medal or something!

But the way Wild had said it—'just me and my dad'—sounded lonelier, and Mikey wondered if there weren't any grandparents or aunts or anything at all. Hadn't she just moved to a new city, too? And if she didn't go to school, there were no friends to be made there, either.

"Anyway when I told him I was gonna hang out at a friend's house where there would be no drugs, no tall glass buildings, and plenty of supervision, there might as well have been an angel chorus descending to sing hallelujah in the background, like 'rock on, you're someone else's responsibility today squirt, woo!' So I can go home whenever's convenient. Um. Sir."

* * *

Had she laid it on too thick? No, Ana had kept any edge of melancholy out of her voice, and that had sold largely-absent-parents as part of her character package. She'd told the truth, _truthfully_ , but in such a way as to turn it into something other than the truth. _Conversational dancing_. She'd done it since she'd been old enough to speak to anyone outside her father, relying on future facial expressions and various forms of smile. _Use the magic of assumptions._ Pizza was eaten enthusiastically.

"Oh! Sandro," Wildcard started into yet another piece. "We should make an anti curse-word pact."

"Hmm," Sandro hummed into his slice. "How are we going to enforce this pact, and what do we do when I win?"

"Wait, _seriously_?" she rolled her eyes at him and went to grab one of those pure-cheese pizza slices to try it. "The amount of times you said 'fuck' today was astonishing for someone who comes from a family that's invented its own fake curse-word and where 'holy chalupa' is an actual thing. (By the way, that's just amazing, I'm totally stealing that). Now until recently, _I_ was surrounded by ghetto kids and bad examples, but what's _your_ excuse?"

Sandro colored up burgandy, and Donatello looked from her to him (win!). "Uh."

"Where did this dirty mouth come from anyway?" Wildcard mused aloud. "If Mikey doesn't curse, and Donnie's looking at you like _that_ , and Leo's _aloof_ , then the only possible explanation puts you in kinship with _A Christmas Sto-_ "

Sandro kicked her, and she snickered. "Topic change," he demanded.

"Ouch! _Sure_. Why do you smell of orange peels?" Sandro blanched and laughed at the unexpected redirect. "Orange peels and something vaguely alkaline I have no word for..."

"What is 'Alkaline?'" he blurted, sounding amused by how her mind could bounce around like that. One second she'd been bringing up Raphael, and now she was on citrus.

"Opposite of acidic," she and Donatello answered almost simultaneously. The latter glanced at her as if mildly impressed (score!) and then said, "It's the smell of bath salts."

"Oh. We are forestalling a shell rot epidemic," Sandro told her. "Had to soak and scrub down our shells with anti-fungal ointment."

Wildcard leaned back and glanced behind him, doubtful. "Can you _reach_ your own shell?"

"Not really. Everyone looks after everyone else. Kinda takes a bit." Her vision glazed over, and Sandro raised a brow. "What?" He ought to have known better than to ask.

"Oh nothing. Just," _in the name of all that is sane, do not imply inappropriate and/or sexual things in front of Donatello when he already doesn't like you,_ "imagining four or five, athletic, attractive, seven foot guys doting lovingly on one-another in a bath tub. No big. Might have needed a napkin to staunch a nosebleed if I were any older, mind you." _There, that safe enough while still being me-ish, right?_

Mikey beamed (yes, you are so adorable Orange Turtle, you are!), Donatello squinted, and Sandro turned a slow stare onto her that said he knew _exactly_ where she had almost gone, and was trying to decide whether or not to hit her for it. Well, _hey_ , if he suddenly decked her, explaining himself was on his own shoulders, so _nyah nyah_!

"Just like a Japanese bath house?" Wildcard added on, in a wide-grinned squeak. _No incestuous behavior implied!_

"Yes, Wild. Exactly like a Japanese bath house," Sandro punctuated with intensity, but the way he shot nervous glances at his relatives both suggested he'd let this slide if she said nothing more provocative. "A place of healing and repose. Complete with orange-scented incense."

"And bubbles!" Mikey betrayed them all. "Pink ones!"

Sandro fell into a silent facepalm and Wildcard threw her head back and flung a forearm over her face to laugh like a hyena, leaving two adults to wonder what _the hell_ the two of them had been thinking. "I'm gonna kill ya," the youngest turtle growled, and she removed her forearm to grin up at his face.

"Nawww," she'd just figured out how to save them all: "I pretend you're _girly_ far too many times in a given day, for you to even _consider_ murdering me over your family taking a lady's spa day! AH-No!" He lunged for her, and managed to drag her back (she'd nearly escaped!) and pulled her across the space between them and into a headlock.

"No! C'mon, it's _totally_ _funny_ —!" the wordless knuckle sandwich she received suggested Sandro thought otherwise, "—oww-oww- _owww_! Okay, I yield, I yield! I'm sorry! Ow!" Sandro dropped her and, since she'd been pulled between their chairs, she fell on the ground with a thud and her legs still looped over her chair seat. "You're a _jerk_ , Hamato Sandro." He turned dispassionate but amused eyes down onto her, and licked pizza sauce from his beak. "Never change," she added, with surety.

"Are you... alright?" Donatello asked as she pulled herself back upright, and it sounded like he'd just born witness to something he found very strange.

She stuck her tongue out at Sandro, and then grabbed the last slice of _her_ pizza before he could get it. "Yeah, I'm only allowed to tease him if he's allowed to punch me," she giggled, and didn't see Donatello's baffled and alarmed reaction until Mikey warbled out a high-pitched:

"That's so _cuuuuutteee_!" which confused everyone but Mikey, Wild included.

"How is that _cute_?" Donatello demanded. "Sandro, you cannot simply _hit_ her because she's annoyed you!"

A look of pained confusion crossed Sandro's face, but Michelangelo outright spun to face the older turtle in wide-eyed alarm. "Why not?" Orange Turtle asked, horrified. Donatello straightened incredulously. "It's what _we'd_ do, right?" Mikey supplied.

"Hit a _girl_!?" Donatello sputtered.

"What! Ohhhh so _you_ can hit _me_ ," Michelangelo drawled in understanding, "because I'm a _dude_? Got it!" He leaned over the table and raised a hand as if to whisper privately, "Psst, guys, Donnie's sexist!"

"What!? No, no I'm-!" Donnatello really did bite down on the temptation to punch him and instead went scarlet, highly flustered. "That's not appropriate behavior for anyone!"

"Oh yeah," Mikey drank some soda and belched," cause we're all very appropriate here in this family." He stretched back in his seat and crossed his legs as a red-faced Donatello glared through him in shocked disbelief.

"Mikey..."

"Relaaax bro, just cause you totally had a crush on April when we were teenagers doesn't mean Le Tiny Chick can't be Lil Bro's lil bro."

Donatello half-lunged, and caught himself just before tearing Michelangelo down into a headlock of his own. Mikey grinned wide, tongue sticking out between his beak, eyes knowing. Donatello's fingers curled on the table.

"I _won_ , didn't I? I diiiiid!" Mikey winked at the kids, who were both looking at him like he was the messiah sent to deliver them from crushing oppression at the hands of their elders. "I've heard enough! Don't worry Sandro, I can handle this worrywart. Go show Le Tiny Chick the dojo!"


	33. A Little Bit of Faith

Wild stuffed the edge of a slice of the Hawaiian into her mouth to hold onto it as she shouldered her backpack and hurried after a beckoning Sandro.

By the voices which rose up behind them, Donnie and Mikey were about to pick some bones with one-another's parenting (uncleing?) methodologies, and the war was to be waged in some fantastic Japanese-Spanish-Italian pidgin. Was that French? That was definitely French. Who would have guessed the turtles were a family of polyglots? Come to think of it, how old were they, and how far had they traveled, and how many things had they done in life that had never made it into comics or onto newspapers? A glance behind her had her in love with Mikey's wildly glowing grin and Donnie's fierce, calculating glare.

"This is weird. Michelangelo rarely argues with him," Sandro murmured quietly as he reached back to lead her by the elbow, which was entirely fair, as she was thoroughly distracted by every appliance, room, electronic, and collection of pipes she passed. "And Don's not usually so... _pessimistic?_ " That wasn't quite the right word.

"That's the weirdest part of present moment for you, eh?" Wildcard asked, tearing her pizza slice from her mouth and eating the bite she'd captured. Then she gestured at him with the rest of the slice. "I disagree. See, _I'm_ fixated on how naked your head looks. Normally you have a hood on, and your uncles both have masks and bandanna tails, and I'm just not accustomed to thinking of you as bald."

Sandro slowly grinned and shook his head. "You and I talk like no one else is you talk enough for six people and are built from _extremes_. It's like you have no balance in any part of your life."

"You take that back; I have _excellent_ balance!" she scoffed as she stood on one foot and ate her pizza.

"Oh _sure_." He tossed a hand. "You're either calmly doing schoolwork, or you're dangling off skyscrapers. You're either eating gourmet, or you're piling six tons of the greasiest possible cheese on top. You're either lying through your teeth, or you're blurting everything as truthfully as possible. There's no in-between, no mix, no balance."

Wild leaned back on her heels and furrowed her brow at nothing in particular as she ate the last bite of her pizza. After a moment she glanced up at him and said slowly, "I feel calmer around you. More grounded." He straightened as if startled. She tilted her head to the side. "Both your uncles kept looking at you strangely. Are you normally more... inhibited?... around your family?"

Sandro opened his mouth to argue that normally he wasn't chasing around and yelling at crazy little clowns, but her words struck some core of nagging insecurity buried under his shell. He faltered. "'Inhibited,'" he repeated the word, and then shook his head. "I don't know."

"Well, I'll watch you," Wildcard dusted her hands free of pizza crumbs, stepped close to loop her arm around his elbow, and fixed him with a charming smile and a dock of her head, "and you watch me. We'll trade our findings!" Physical contact with him was a strangely earthen pleasure; _reassuring_ even as it left her giddy. To be fair, a coat had made skin-to-skin touch rare outside of sparring. "It's easier to watch now, you know, with you in good lighting!"

"I still can't believe you're really here." There was a weakness in his smile as he stared down at her, and a genuine joy threatening somewhere past the hesitantly twitching corners of his mouth. "I _never_ thought it'd happen."

"Your family is _so aw_ -!" His fingers brushed her temple, and her thoughts derailed. _Oh. You're just as emotional as I was. You just show it differently._ Little pink cartoon hearts surely popped into existence all around herself. "Another hug," she demanded urgently, detangling her arm from his. He turned into her, and leaned over slightly to receive her, and she got her arms around his neck and part of his shell and hoisted herself up to the tips of her toes against him. Broad shoulders curved around her as he draped his arms across her back. After a moment, he turned his snout into her temple.

"Thank you," he murmured. ( _For noticing I needed something.)_

Now, she'd only just been introduced to it that very day, when Sandro had picked her up at the threshold, but Wildcard suspected she might grow smitten with this warm spot here, where his neck met his shoulder. If only it were a little easier for her to reach on her own! "You're too tall," she grumbled, before grinning into his collarbone. "I've got it, though: We are clearly Yin and Yang, and we're better off together than we'll ever be apart." He gave her a tight squeeze of agreement. "You're _Yin_ , by the way."

"That's the feminine part," he half-laughed/half-growled as he released her. "Is this going to be a running gag with you?"

"Ha! Really? _Yes!_ I just knew Yang was the bright and energetic half," she cackled. "Maybe we're both Yin and both Yang."

"Ah, well, that sounds like the entire point of Ying-Yang," he mused, dropping a hand to her lower back to usher her along. "In Japanese they are _In_ and _Y_ _ō_ , and the traditional belief system surrounding them and the elements is _onmyōdō._ "

"Hmm. Perhaps you should teach me Japanese, Hamato-san."

"Says the girl who won't use 'sensei.'" They had reached the dojo, which was enormous with high arching rafters above. The floor was adorned in beautiful, thick Japanese carpets, and surrounded by a canal of fresh water in which glimmered koi, guppies, and fancy goldfish. Incense burners hung from above. The walls had been paneled in wood and draped in several locations with calligraphy, which she'd presumed had all been proofed against decay. By the potted bonsai trees lining the canal, the lighting above must have been in full solar spectrum. Practice weapons stood on racks along the wall. "It's not exactly _authentic_ ," Sandro explained. "But then neither are we. And it makes for a tranquil space for combat practice or meditation. It is sort of Leonardo's room."

"Does any of the decor ever get damaged?" she wondered as her gaze swept along it to where a particularly large tree—too large to be called a bonsai any longer—sat in a massive cast-bronze pot at the far end, half-occluding a short dividing wall and a space beyond from which candles appeared to be flickering.

"Sometimes, if spars get particularly rowdy, and then we have to repair or replace it. But we do this sort of thing every day, and most people have better self-control than _you_." He noticed the direction of her gaze. "Oh. Here," he gestured that she should follow, and strode across the dojo. He passed the potted sakura, and stepped into the shrine beyond. "This is in memory of my grandfather," he explained.

" _Splinter_ ," Wildcard realized aloud, an uncharacteristic solemnness overtaking her face. She looked from the inscribed stone tablet to the framed pictures upon the long mahogany altar, with its little bowls of offerings and softly burning candles. "You never mentioned him..."

"I never got to meet him," Sandro explained. "He was murdered before I was even born." He knelt before the altar to pay his respects, and lit a thin stick of incense to embed in a bowl of ash resting before the tablet. "Grandfather, I... I wish I had come to you sooner with my problems. Maybe I would have benefited from your wisdom. This is my friend, Grandfather. Please, as she visits with us, could you watch over her as you would me?"

Wildcard, who was not in the least bit religious, leaned back in startled uncertainty. She felt undeserving of being incorporated into a _prayer_ , of all things. She didn't even believe in life after death! (How could she, when bodies were blank space, representing a lack of any future?) But clearly Sandro believed in something, and she felt strange dissonance between the two possible present states of herself: 1) Standing before a stone listening to her friend talk to a non-existent entity, or 2) Standing before the spirit of a very wise old rat without believing in him. Hmm. The latter sounded disrespectful, so she lowered her head in a little bob, a _flinch_ of 'if you're there, please don't hate me, please let me be his friend.'

Sandro bowed and then stood and rejoined her beside the entrance to the shrine. "So," he asked with a boyish glance her way. "How many of Uncle Leo's bonsais are you going to destroy if I let you throw stars at me?"

"Ooh. We should practice acrobatics to warm up," she suggested. "This space is big enough to do floor exercises!"

Sandro perked up thoughtfully and then groaned. "Okay, I'm in, I need the practice," he agreed. "Don't make me look _too_ bad, this is the one area I lag in..."

"Ha!" she elbowed him. "I need to make you look _terrible_ if I'm to stomach being thrown about by you in ninjitsu practice later on, _big brother_. Chalk it up to my competitive spirit!"

"Consider it chalked." He tugged her hoodie sleeve. "Do I see your catsuit peeking out from underneath?" She nodded. "Well dress down and I'll give you some wraps for your hands and feet. Do you want any protective gear?"

"Nah. You do the shin splints and elbow pads; I'll wait until I've hit my funny bone at least once, so you can have the pleasure of saying 'I told you so,' first."

"So _courteous_ of you..." he drawled wryly as he went to pull out a neatly packaged bin of practice equipment.

"Oh! By the way!" she called as she got her hoodie and baggy pants off to bare her nighttime costume. "What happened to that poor toaster, back there?"

* * *

"Donster, what are you on about!?" Mikey admonished laughingly as he danced around the table. "You're not pickin' out a designer poodle, yo! Adorable yellow street mutt adoptions for everyone!" Donatello lunged, and Mikey squealed and dove to the side, keeping that table between the two of them.

" _Mikey_ ," Purple Turtle snarled. "I am going to _pound you into last week_. Bringing up ancient history in front of Sandro, right after Raphael did it, was entirely unnecessary!"

"It's cause your logic lasers needs retargetting again, and I only know how to hit tech with hammers, and, oh, I have a blow-up yellow squeaky hammer, should I go get it!?" He sucked in a deep breath of air to combat his run-on sentence, "Why you so critical, bro!?"

"It's called being skeptical! I'm a security specialist charged with the protection and rearing of my best friend's and second-eldest brother's only son. I was _soliciting data!_ "

"You were being _insensitive_! This is the one thing he's always been missing, the one thing he didn't have which we all had: Eachother. And are _we_ perfect? He's the one who has to like her, not us! "

"She's a _stranger_ he's only known for three months! _You_ have been kicking me in the face while I'm trying to sleep _since we hatched!_ " Donatello shouted.

"Okay, bro, seriously, you have chronic night terrors, and I'm the world's most efficient ninja. I am _trained_ to kick you awake if your pulse elevates. Just: RESCUE FOOT TO THE FACE and then happy purring shell snuggles; I don't even have to wake up any more!"

Donatello snarled, "Oh, how _convenient_ that must be for you! He-who-still-randomly-becomes-convinced-the-boogieman-is-under-his-bed-and-demands-I-come-over-and-read-him- _The-Velveteen-Rabbit_."

"Na-aw, that only ever happened after horror movies, and now I know better and just totally sleep with you instead, so _nyah_!"

An exasperated purple turtle shouted: "My point still stands!" because he would never in a million years admit that having his younger brother climb up on top of his shell to sleep there was something like owning a four hundred pound security blanket. (Unless he was allowed to cite reptile basking habits, in which case he totally might have managed so long as no one interrupted him.) "There was a lot more time to bond, there!"

"Bro, April's like your ultimate best friend forever, and you were older than San when that 'bonding thing' happened, and now he just hugged his girlfriend like doin so had him zenned out halfway to the astral plane, he _wuvs_ her, totally, with a 'w'!"

Donatello lunged to argue but then paused and said: "There should be a space in there. Between 'girl' and friend.'"

"Oh, right, good catch. Ahem. And when I called his girlspacefriend to tell her she could come visit, she started tearing up over the phone and had to rapidly change the subject to pizza to keep herself from crying. She's totally just a kid and I don't think she has any friends either!"

"Look, I was attempting to discern any negative impact this girl has had on our nephew so that I can account for it and offset it."

"Negative impact!" Mikey threw up his arms. "What about the positive impact!? Lil bro came _alive_ before our very eyes! PAZOWEE! He got loud, and rough—like Raph!—and he lectured her and kept her cup filled—like Leo!—and he had her all figured out and could follow all these jumps in her story, and _omigod_ just the way he broke down that pizza toppings convo all logically, step-by-step, that had _you_ written all over it, D!"

Donatello, still leaning over the table with an aggressive sneer, frowned slowly. He looked down slowly, eyes shifting from side to side as he thought.

"I mean, I mean, have you ever seen him like that!? It's like he was this crushed little crumbled browned wilted thing talking to us or April," Michelangelo mimed a small object between his hands, "and then—ANGEL VOICES SINGING!—he takes one look at Le Tiny Chick and a whole flower blooms open, and the insides were in technicolor, dude! _Technicolor_!"

Donatello slowly, guiltily, lifted his gaze back to where an Orange Turtle was waggling his arms about to gesticulate his frustrated excitement.

"He was smug, and clever, and charming and like–like–like where has all that _been_? I mean, I thought Sandro was quiet, moody, and reserved... and maybe a little emotionally constipated like _you three_ —I dunno! But he's _not!"_ He mimed his brain exploding and gave it a 'pssheeww!' sound effect.

Donatello leaned back, the fire gone out of him, and gave an introspective shake of his head. "No, he's raised walls to protect himself from what he _perceives_ as our disapproval. And when he dropped his guard for her, as if the air around her constituted a safe space, I mindlessly tried to censor his behavior," Donatello admitted quietly, feeling wretched. "Back to an arbitrarily selected and wholly unimportant 'normal.'"

"A 'safe space'? Yeah. _Yeah_! Like, he doesn't shell up around her," Mikey agreed, skirting the table to come up to him. "That's what I'm talkinbout! That's your genius brain working, bro!"

"My 'genius brain' nearly induced a _panic-attack_ , when I of all people ought to have known better. You were... right to interrupt me, Mike."

"Yo no worries, I was just watching his face- What did you just say? Did you actually say that? _Say it again_."

Donatello glanced at him, and then sighed and stated loudly for his younger brother's benefit: "You were actually _right_ about something, Michelangelo, and I was wrong."

"Eee!" Orange Turtle bounced ecstatically from foot to foot. "Only you don't have to add in the 'I was wrong' part, bro, I'm not _Raph_. Also your brain puts things together better than mine, all I can do is—what's it called again?"

"Blurt aloud your 'Stream of Consciousness.'"

"Yes! That! And you put it all together into something that makes sense." Mikey hugged on him, and Donnie sighed but tolerantly patted him on the head. "Oh and I think you might like her if you tried! Didn't you look at their chat logs? She tutors him in _math_. I think. It was math, right?"

Donatello considered. "She can _apparently_ disarm missiles, gain access to unusual equipment, and build improvised explosive devices. Couple that with knife-throwing and late-night rooftop runs, and she's certainly an _interesting_ skill-set for a thirteen year old. But all the evidence supports your intuition on this point, Mikey, she's not a gang child. Which I suppose really does make her a female Casey Jones. Ick."

Mikey snickered and then insisted conspiratorially, "But with Orange Sprinkles?"

Donatello sighed, disengaged his brother from his arm, pushed him away by the face, and dusted himself off. "It's clear _you_ like her. Still it's obvious that artificially separating them at this juncture would do irreparable harm, there's nothing horrendously wrong with her, her presence is clearly helping him, and the attachment seems mutual. So we'll work with what we have."

"So we're keeping her!?" Mikey squealed.

"What? I still haven't agreed to anything," Donatello warned testily, even though he basically had, "but I suppose if we _do_ 'keep' that little She-Casey, then at least our objectives are clear-cut: We and Sandro need to train her to behave herself upon meeting his parents. But while we're working with Sandro anyway, I can see how she'll serve as a useful emotional backup, and hopefully she will see she needs to make a good first impression if this friendship is to continue." Donatello reflected. "Your thoughts?"

"Well for just exactly now, like the next week, can we just give em a safe place to play? You know, like, no judgement? She can come here or, if you don't wanna be side-stepping Leo every day, one of us can take them out into the sewers. We can pack lunches for them, it'll be cute!"

" _Every_ day?! You think... she should visit routinely...?"

"Well that's how it's been for them, right? They'd hang out every day, play, do their schoolwork, train, stuff like that. This way he'd get to get used to the idea he's gonna be able to keep her. Should bolster his confidence, right?"

"And his trust towards us. We'd be actually _doing_ something to help him feel better, instead of just making promises." The sheer intensity of this deception, however well-intended, still itched at Donatello's ethics. He could already see it might take _months_ before Sandro would be ready to approach his parents, and that seemed an awful long time to keep Leonardo, Raphael and April in the dark on something so important as a new adoption to their 'friendship circle.' Was Donatello really going to arrange daily play sessions with a somewhat dubious child without the rightful parents' knowledge or consent?

On the other hand, if Ana was coming underground consistently, Sandro might no longer have any incentive to sneak topside, and he'd be voluntarily accepting constant adult supervision for the first time since early adolescence (and he'd mentioned the dojo, as if trying to imply exactly that) and _that_ sounded like the world's best possible plan, if one's objective was to keep him safe! To say nothing of how months of harmless interactions would generate a rather hefty set of evidence that Anastasia meant them no harm. It might even help _her_ , if she agreed to it, to have some more adult influences in her life.

"Alright. We'll make the suggestion to them, and see how they feel. In a few days, once the novelty of having her here has worn off, we'll re-open the topic of his relationship with his parents, and how he can learn to express himself to them, introduce her, and win their approval without freezing up. Even just _having her there_ during those conversations might help him be more open with us. In an emergency, we can stand in to explain her presence ourselves, protect Sandro from their scrutiny, and save relationship-fixing for another day."

"Aww yeahhh! That's my bro, man with the plan, always the smart one...!"

Donatello sighed. "Yes. Well. I had help." From Leo, too, as much as Donnie hadn't wanted to admit it.

Michelangelo's phone rumbled with an unexpected text message, and he reached for it and swiped to see what he'd been sent. He burst out with explosive laughter. Donatello raised a brow, and reached over to take the phone as Mikey handed it to him.

The contact read 'Le Tiny Chick,' and her message was, "Instructions: Print out and affix to toaster, akin to surgeon general's warning." Attached was a list of demotivational posters featuring sewer fires, all captioned with 'Who let Leo cook!?' and the laughing emoticons of random Tumbr and Reddit users."

Donatello was silent a moment. "So, because of your comics, random people on the internet share our pain?" A slow grin wormed across his face. "Leo would be positively _mortified_ to hear of this, don't you think?"

"Oh _let's do it...!_ "

* * *

[Author's Note]

After 30 years of rooming with your own sibling, you'd probably be platonically married to them too :3

Also, the Velveteen Rabbit is awesome, Donnie.


	34. Setting up Baseline Expectations

Sandro and Anastasia had been bereft of a proper 'play space' since meeting one another, relying instead on stolen hours in the rec center, or on the vacancy of public parks at midnight, or on lumpy, glass-strewn factory lots out by the wharf. Now all the hampering circumstances designed to keep them unseen had been stripped away; They had an enormous underground dojo, with its carefully maintained floorboards and plush carpets, and the air was filled with the soft smells of old incense and delicately blossoming bonsai trees. It had been many years since that dojo had been filled with the laughter of playful and martially proficient teenagers, testing their strength and dexterity against one-another. The wooden clack of their practice staves rang off the walls.

"C'mon Wild," Sandro growled, a sure grin on his face as he stood over her. " _Push_. Throw me."

"Excuse me, but genetics have made you unfairly big, h-heavy, and strong!" she complained, panting, "I can't be expected to-"

"I'm standing on one foot, completely off-balance, and you've been studying aikido long enough to know you can throw even the heaviest targets with the right circumstances," he laughed beside her ear. "Are all those pull-ups just for show?" he drawled, "or is ickle Ana-poo _too small and princessy_ to handle herself in a real fi-"

That got her moving. She dug her toes in and pushed, and at long last managed to get him over her shoulder. He hit the ground with a hard crack of his shell and immediately clapped. "That's what I'm talkin ab-!"

He wasn't prepared for—but ought to have been—her pouncing on him with a delighted cry of, " _Booyakasha_!" and he had to get his hands up to catch her staff. She managed to hold him down for all of five seconds before he recovered, rolled back, and sent her flying over his head. In classic Wildcard fashion, she flipped herself upright. He laughed as he clambered to his feet, and demanded:

"How are you so _spry_ , dammit! You did _hockey_ not _trampolining_!"

"Ah but full-contact sports got my da on board with training me in general physical fitness! And that was back when we were all the same height and really just interested in racing and whacking one another with sticks!" she cackled, hunkering down into a defensive stance. "Sides, cardio and obstacle traversal got me out of a lot of trouble on the walk home!"

Sandro thought about that as he paced about her, watching her stance. She was getting better at not leaving glaring openings. "You weren't on a gendered team, were you? Then middle-school hit, and sexual dimorphism would have landed you on an all-girls' team." She stuck out her tongue in distaste and acknowledgement. He thought about her aversion to authority figures and the word sensei as he settled down into an attacking stance. "Was the teacher a control freak?"

"How well you _know_ me, Hamato-san." She wiped sweat from her brow. "Thanks, by the way; for not letting me get away with whining."

"I won't be going easy on _you_ , you incendiary loudmouth," Sandro grinned broadly. "Need you to be able to soak my punches _safely_ , don't I?"

* * *

"Owwww," she rocked, hugging her knee to her chest.

"Drum-roll please," Sandro growled jovially as he settled down beside her with an armful of protective gear, "' _I told you so_.'" He reached out to obtain her leg.

"I must have have a low pain tolerance," she complained as he stretched out the afflicted limb. He slipped a black, soft-capped knee pad up over her catsuit and fastened it. "Were these yours, once?"

"Mhn," he agreed and then caught her foot and furrowed his brow. "What size _shoe_ do you wear?"

" _Four_ ," she complained with a dramatic, wide-armed flop back onto the rug. "They're positively _dainty_ feet, Sandro, which the internet tells me is a sure sign I won't get much taller."

"Ancestors help me, it's the _height_ melodrama again." He gave a big roll of his eyes, and pulled on the second knee-pad since she was sitting still for him. "Did you know the ancient Japanese considered small feet attractive?"

"I'm a thirteen year old tomboy, San. I couldn't give a _flying fuck_ what anyone considers attractive, much less ancient dead people." Sandro cracked up laughing, and set to applying the shin splints purely so that he could feel zero guilt about sweeping her legs out from underneath her. He felt her fingers walk up his shell. "Each panel has pretty _starburst_ patterns," she remarked. "Hey trade me a question, what kind of turtle are you guys? You don't look anything like red-eared sliders."

"Piecemeal hybrids. Depends how much detail you can wrangle out of Donatello on a given day," Sandro answered, turning about to pull her upright again that he might get some elbow pads on her. "He conducted genetic profiling to reconstruct the story, as no original documentation survived. Our base DNA was donated from a conservation project involving the Japanese Wood Turtle. We have some snapper genes, some tortoise; the red-eared slider DNA gives us our upturned beak shape," he tapped at his face. "There's some experimental synthetic stuff; it's why our shells are bullet-proof."

"Your shells really are _bullet proof?!_ "

"...'Bullet-resistant,'" he thought he ought to clarify, since this was Wild he was talking to.

"Then is Mutagen even a real thing?"

"Oh my family _wasn't_ designed _humanoid!_ " he back-tracked hurriedly. "Freakishly glowing green Mutagen _totally_ _is_ _a real thing_! Might as well be a real-life _macguffin._ I mean, of course when he wrote the comics, Mikey hand-waved the science and replaced compromising details his own brand of nonsense, which I suppose is why children like them," he finished armoring her, "but the accidental anthropomorphization of an unusually intelligent rat and four turtle eggs, in a sewer, by means of bio-hazardous chemicals from an alien dimension, really did all happen. I think there was an exploding research center somewhere in the middle there." Wildcard did, after all, very much love explosions.

" _Wowwww_..." It was difficult to say whether she was dazed by the story or by her mental image of the explosion he'd tacked on the end. He shook his head, bemused. "What's a _macguffin_?" she abruptly asked.

"An overpowered and omnipresent plot device with insufficient explanation given as to its capabilities," Sandro drawled as he stood and offered a hand down to her. "You up for another round?" She clasped his wrist immediately, and let him haul her easily to her feet.

"It depends!" she eyed him sagaciously for a moment and then asked: "Can I borrow your deodorant?" He stuffed a hand in her face, but did eventually relent.

* * *

Donatello wasn't certain what he expected to find upon glancing into the dojo once everything grew quiet, but it wasn't the two children laying on a rug under the sakura with their textbooks open in front of them, and their feet kicked up in the air, amid notebooks and a large collection of highlighters.

"Okay," Sandro said, passing Wildcard one tome. "Try this."

She took it and squinted with all the hardship of a person suffering advanced dyslexia. "'On fortune's c-cap we are not the very button.' Would the button be the very top? Does that mean they are not having the best luck?" Sandro nodded and she continued, "'Nor the soles of her shoe?' 'Neither my lord.' 'Then you l-live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?' What's a _favour_?"

"I'm sure you'll get it in a second," Sandro mused wryly. "Glad to see my highlighting's helping."

"It is. 'Faith, her privates we.' Wait, what? 'In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet.'" Wildcard stiffened, and looked to him with the most incredulous face. Then she collapsed upon her textbook and hammered her fist on the ground. "Wh-why!?" she sobbed hysterically. "Why!?"

"Its a little misleading to call Shakespeare by pretentious titles," her tutor drawled, "when his greatest talent was in writing for common people. Every other line is a limerick or pun, and the banter's always lightning quick." He scooped up the notebook she'd been working on, and groaned at what appeared to be a copious amount of red pen. "Wow. What did I do wrong?"

"Compound interest," she told him as she rolled over into him and held her reader aloft. "The word problems screwed you up by switching around vocab in terms of quarters and months, when what you've got to recall is that the value 't' is based on _elapsed time periods_ according to the terms of the investment, where calculations will technically run and interest will be paid out."

"So this first one would be... six? Instead of ten?"

"Mnn-hmm! Also I strongly recommend you don't calculate the little 'r' immediately and just keep it as big 'R' over 100. You tag the 100 along with the 'n' because then you don't have to mess around with decimal points immediately and you can reduce the fractions. Lets you divide the problem up into quadrants of whole numbers instead of leaning on the calculator the entire time, and increases the chance you'll be able to immediately recognize if a number doesn't look right."

"What? Like _how_?" She rolled in place and reached past his arm, boxing off the problem into squares. He huffed. "I'm still trying to accept that two single-letter variables are distinguished by mere _capitalization_ , and you are over here _optimizing shit._ "

"Just wait till you're trying to calculate vapor density using molar mass and 'p's and 'm's and Greek letters are everywhere and you're trying to remember if _delta_ is it's own symbol or if it's there to signify a change has occurred over another variable, and whether or not that was the _change over time_ or-"

He covered her face to stop the deluge, and begged in laughing exasperation: "Stop stahp staahhhp...! Ugh! _Show off_." Anastasia giggled and pushed herself up to a seat to get away from the muffle. "Why do you even like that stuff?"

"It's my escapism from the world of _actually doing my homework_ ," she cooed, crossing her legs to rest her book in her lap. "A book of puzzles to entertain me when I ought to be engaged in hard labor, which apparently—all along—has actually been parsing medieval Saturday Night Lives skits!"

"Oh yeah, Stewart's _Calculus_ , just a bit of _light reading,_ as easy as a book of sudoku!" he teased as he turned to a fresh sheet of notebook paper and selected a pencil that he might repair his math. Wildcard became distracted and traced whorls on his shell. After a bit, she leaned into him and her fingers followed the carapace, as if to see if the patterns were symmetrical. "Did you find a cheat sheet up there?" he prompted dryly.

"Gah!" she nearly leaped out of her skin. "Nnnnooo..." she blurted guilty, rapidly pushing herself back upright again. "No, I'm being creepy _again!_ "

"Nah, go ahead," he snickered. "What's the difference between this and the park—a coat? I'm so used to your wide-eyed stare, I was nearly laughing when you kept looking up at my uncles like your brain had dropped out of your head."

She considered this a moment and grew dark red, but then slumped gratefully back into him, and propped her elbows and book upon his shell. "Dank oo Sandro."

He seemed entirely content. "If you ever see any wavy lines or flaking, let me know."

"Goott~ittttt~!" she sang cheerfully. "'For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.'"

In the hall, Michelangelo slipped up alongside where Donatello was eavesdropping from, and tugged on his elder brother's sleeve. Donatello looked to him in surprise, reflexively scowled, visibly reconsidered, then sub-sequentially melted. He nodded the admission and peered quietly back out into the dojo.

Their nephew had a friend. Watching them together was almost a guilty pleasure; a soft, nostalgic, but living reminder of years long past.

* * *

"Children!" That word was hardly unfamiliar on Donatello's tongue; he oft referred to his brothers (older and younger) by the same appellation. "Lunch!" Still outside of Casey and Shadow's rare visits, he never had _two_ youths rocketing to the table simultaneously. Certainly one didn't trip the other, and the other didn't overturn a chair on the one, and both didn't end up in a squealing, snarling pile that eventually settled its differences with:

"Does this mean we tied?" followed by a brief reflection to ascertain the validity of this outcome.

"You better hurry," Mchelangelo suggested with his tongue out between his beak in a tease as he served steaming hot grilled cheese sandwiches onto platters. "Or I might eat them all."

"I smell Mozzarella!" Anastasia popped up triumphantly like a daisy, and the two children righted the kitchen furniture so as to be presented with much needed calories after that lengthy workout. Scarcely an instant transpired between being served food and pigging out into it. Ah, teenagerdome.

"Thank you for cooking!" she said between mouthfuls. Sandro ribbed her and told her not to talk with her mouth full. She sank her teeth into the sandwich and said something muffled and unintelligible with both hands in the air. He cuffed her upside the back of the head and made her choke and then laugh. And afterwards when they had finished, Sandro gestured the two of them should watch the dishes and—while it took her a moment to catch on—she did follow dutifully after him to help without complaint.

* * *

The plump, pale gray crocodile crawling about on the floor didn't seem to know _what_ to make of Wildcard's entry, but she let Sandro lean over and pick her up like she were a toddler or favorite cat, with her scaly body pillowed onto his shoulder and her hands upon the lip of his shell. "This," he said as he gave her scutes a hefty scratching and turned about, "is Lady Smiles-A-Lot."

"She's so fattt!" Wildcard gushed with fearless curiousity. "Hellllo beautiful! Can I touch her?"

"Of course, don't let her toothy mug fool you, she's a glutton for affection. Just start lower than her head so she knows you're coming."

"So cool so cool so cool," Wildcard giggled as she reached forward with both hands and lavished that gator in pets and scratchings. "Awwesomme! I've never pet any reptile bigger than these lil' Anole we'd catch outdoors in Florida, and that was a bazillion years ago!" She paused. "Unless _you_ count, tehe~! Hiii Smillesss...! She has the _most_ _perfect name..._!"

"Oh yes, she's just like you! Except _silent_ ," Sandro punctuated with a wry grin.

" _Hey_!" Wild scratched the back of Smiles' head and eye ridges, and Smiles closed her eyes and zenned out to a blissful and happy place. "No, she's got this _knowing_ _look_ to her," Wild said after a moment. "Like she's at complete, magnanimous peace with the universe. Like some wise old little Buddhist spirit. Aren't you Smiles?"

"That's her to a 'T,'" Sandro agreed, raising an arm over his shoulder to scratch the tip of her nose. "Want to help me feed the snakes?"

"Sure! Why do you have so many?" She looked about with curiousity, at a bedroom that was much, much neater than her own despite featuring two walls of solid aquariums, heating fixtures and plumbing. The other side was bereft of posters but covered in shells of organized boxes, toys, gear, and projects. He had a little study desk, and a bedside table and lamp, and his bedspread was plain and devoid of decoration.

"This used to be the reptile room," Sandro explained as he turned and went to set his gator gently down upon his pillow, "where the family would put anything that had survived being flushed into the sewers. One day my uncles found me camped out here with Smiles, and my mother suggested I ought to have my own bedroom anyway." He went to attend to an unexpectedly well-lit closet. "Which worked out for the best; I was the only one not squeamish about feeding them."

"What do they eat?"

"Rodents. Mice. Smiles is a piscivore."

" _What_!?" She hurried up to see, and sure enough there was a musky terrarium filled with skittering white mice who, despite their fate in the circle of life, were at least equipped with a great number of squeaky wheels, tunnels, and sunflower seeds by which to enjoy their brief tenure on Earth. Which one supposed was as good and ethical as free-ranged chicken would ever be.

"Rest assured that should they ever begin praying to the four winds, drinking tea, or practicing martial arts kata, I shall _immediately_ pardon them from the lunch menu and notify the relevant authorities. Hasn't happened yet." Sandro grinned toothily at her. "Stiiillll want to help me feed them?"

"Gasp! Of course! I feel like I'm taking part in National Geographic—show me how!"

* * *

"Are we supposed to let girl and boy teenagers alone into bedrooms together?" Mikey wondered abruptly.

Donatello paused.

A door flew open with a bang. "Badger badger badger badger!" chanted a petite human child who bolted across their house with her arms in the air whilst wrapped in at least seven pythons of various colors and sizes. "SnnnnaaaAAAAKKKeee, SnnnNNNAAAaaaaaAAKKKKKKeeee!"

"The walking meme repository should be safe," Donnie decided over Mikey's wheezing laughter.

Moments later, Sandro swiftly followed. "Which. Way." He demanded, steaming.

Mike pointed.

"WILD!" the boy bellowed as he pursued. "My back was turned for _fifteen seconds_ , how did you even MANAGE this!? One of those is a _CONSTRICTOR_!"

A voice called back to them, possibly from somewhere in the rafters: "No, she's just filled with tender loving hugs!"

"And if it's between her and ya arm, guess which one ahm gonna saw in half a detatch her!? Hey- _GET BACK HERE!_ "

"Na-aw, you're gonna have to catch me!"

* * *

Evening passed into morning, and the lair's solar lamps began to redden into an imitation of dusk, signaling to natural human _and_ turtle biorhythms that 'bedtime' was steadily approaching. The children did not seem surprised when Donatello summoned them back into the kitchen, and it looked as though Anastasia had already packed her things up. "It's getting close to four," Don began, and it did not skip his attention that the two children might be holding hands, as if karma thought their soft-edged clinginess required a few more underscores to be sure no geniuses missed it this time.

No, he might as well have been looking down at a miniature Raphael and Michelangelo, particularly with the way the former stood slightly ahead of the latter, almost as if instinctively positioned to protect the smaller 'sibling.'

"Mikey will take Anastasia topside and make sure she gets home safely. Sandro, you will be on clean-up duty, seeing as Leonardo is still unaware of your newest acquaintance."

"Of course. Thank you again for letting her visit, uncle." He bobbed his head respectfully. "I know I deeply disappointed you by going topside and that family safety has been-"

"Lighten _up_ , dude," Michelangelo teased. "He's about to tell you she can come again tomorrow, so long as Le Tiny Chick's game!"

"If I'm _game_!? _Deal_ me!" Both children lit up in celebratory excitement, and grinned at each other.

"Hold up, hold up," Donatello interjected. "First of all, Anastasia must agree to our safety rules, particularly with regards to keeping a low profile—"

"—Draw up the contract!" she trilled.

"And second of all, Sandro, she must ultimately be introduced to your parents. We are hoping that by allowing her to visit ahead of time, that you will believe we are earnest about helping you talk to them."

"I-Yes, uncle! Of _course_. Anything!"

Anastasia had paused. She looked up at Sandro with shuttered eyes, and an almost _shrewd_ expression. But that might have been Donatello's imagination given how ridiculous and given-to-blather she was. And then she didn't say anything, and instead smiled up at them all. "I'm in! Though, I'm going to need my batarang back. It's my treasure."

"Eek!"

* * *

Sandro gave her a tight hug at the door.

"You're going to see me _tomorrow_ , stupid!"

"Just in case." He tucked his forehead to hers, and smirked. "You could fall off a skyscraper or somethin."

She giggled. "Alright. Fair. But I promise to play it safe in the hour and a half of darkness I have left." She lifted a pink finger, and a solemn pinky oath was sworn. She gave him a pat on the arm, and then hurried after Michelangelo and skipped around to walk backwards that she might wave to him a bit as she went.

Sandro watched her go till she was out of sight; sunshine occluded behind the walls of the sewer. He eased the door shut and rested there for a few seconds.

 _See you tomorrow, Yang._

He smiled, and turned to survey the house and make sure nothing was out-of-place as a function of her visit. Donatello might have thought Leo a little clueless, but Sandro wasn't so sure; and he made sure to pack the smaller safety gear below more recent stuff, so as not to give away that it had been used recently. He straightened the throwing stars and practice staves against the weapons' wall.


	35. Chu!

The first thought Anastasia had upon entering her home was that someone must have tracked them down. Either an FBI investigation squad, an army of petty burglars, or an enraged superhero had trashed the premises: breaking every dish, upending and tearing holes through furniture, shattering appliances and televisions, and tearing cabinet doors off their hinges. Then her mind stretched back farther, and memories called her out to walk amidst the debris. She found her father sitting behind the torn and battered couch, with his knees drawn up in a hug against his chest.

She sat beside him, and reached out to embrace his shoulders and to pull him into her. He was startled back into an awareness of his surroundings, and then he breathed in sharply and clawed both arms tightly around her.

"It's okay," she whispered to him, because when she'd been very small her father had needed constant reassurances he'd never lose her. Only now did she recall the existence of this insecurity, and reason that while it had had ebbed with time it had never truly vanished. He still needed to know he'd never lose her to to the monsters of the world or—perhaps?—to the people he perceived as _better_ than himself. "Everything's okay. I had a great time, but I'm home now."

He burrowed his face into her, and rocked slowly, and she could feel by how he shook that he was crying. This wasn't the Clown; this wasn't the Father; this wasn't a multiple-personality disorder, or anything nameable at all. This was a deep, primitive, human fear of abandonment. She understood, completely.

"I love you, dad," she kissed his brow knowingly. "Everything is okay."

* * *

Day Two. Anastasia was trying out this fantastic 'transportation-by-skateboard' thing, and had to admit that it took some getting used to! Balancing her backpack took an embarrassing near-fall or two, but she was doing good on bumpy and pothole-ridden sidewalks betimes she'd caught up with the seven-foot turtle waiting outside the gas station. He was wearing a _Matrix-_ styled coat with a neat hood, which looked way too badass on someone so silly.

"Hey Mikey!" She pressed to skid the rear wheels out slightly, stomped back on the skateboard, and managed to slow, dismount and flip it up into her arms with minimal stumbling and fumbling.

"Hey Tiny Chick!" a playful turtle cooed, moving to join her, and taking her skateboard to have a look at it. It still had orange flames running up and down the underbelly, in old, flaking paint. "Ya wanna see some radical moves sometime?"

"I would be _honored_ ," she gushed. "Though I think you need a bigger board than mine, sadly."

"And stronger," he admitted in a begrudging tone with a raise of both brows—as if making a self-deprecating 'fat' joke!—and she laughed. He passed the board back to her as they walked.

"Hey," she posed, "can I hold your hand like a child?"

"Er-Sure! Why, though?"

She hurried close and did exactly as she'd asked; And although this 'adult' had three fingers instead of five (and a level of maturity better befitting a child half her age) she took indescribable comfort in being looked-after in the moment. Maybe it was because he'd come to defend her once already, or maybe it was because his sense of humor made it feel like she'd known him longer than she had, or maybe it was just because he was a charming mix of enormous and sweet-tempered, and closely related to her very best friend. "Makes you look more like family, and less like my drug dealer," was what she told him, though.

"Oh yeah? I do believe _you_ want a _hug_ ," Michelangelo told her smugly. "Yes indeed. I can tell."

She squinted up at him with a skeptical grin and a cross of her arms over her board. "Oh? You have magical hug detectors, Mr. Hamato?"

Oh-Just-! She was picked off the ground by three or four hundred pounds of affectionate orange turtle. Her reflexes got caught somewhere between escaping unsolicited grabs and melting into one of _Sandro's_ hugs. She stared at the older turtle in confused chagrin for a moment—long enough for his certainty to falter and for him to tilt his head to the side, likely concerned that he'd overstepped the boundaries of what was appropriate or permissible at his age, at her age. He was a single intake of breath away from apologizing and setting her down. She threw her arms around his neck, and found the lip of his shell, and hugged him.

"Thank you," she mumbled weakly. _For liking me. For not separating me and San. For not turning me away. For being socially immature. For not being dangerous. For hugging a complete stranger._

"Oh hey," he patted her back, holding her easily aloft with just one forearm under her butt and around her legs. "Don't cry. Shh, don't cry..."

" _Thank you..."_ The tears rolled, splashed between bleary sobs.

'What if I want them to like me?' she'd asked her father. _What if I want to be accepted by someone else's family, too? By other weird people, like us? (_ The broken house, with its furniture strewn pieces strewn everywhere; Her father sitting with her and grading her latest essay, then planning out a new orientation for furniture and decoration, once they'd cleaned everything; Imagining what they'd hang on the walls on what colors everything ought to be.)

 _By more people than just one...?_ _B-by a few more p-pillars than just o-one...?_

If she'd ever wondered where Sandro's acute people-reading skills had come from, she now had an answer. Mikey had cradled her against his shoulder liked a toddler, with his cheek leaned into her hair, as he twisted slowly side to side to rock her and reassuringly pet her back; she felt no awkward revulsion or hesitance or ulterior motive—just a strange, resonant silence, as if somehow she were empathized with, sympathized with, and understood on some deep and nearly psychic level.

* * *

"Wild!" Sandro greeted enthusiastically, waving her over to the table. "Protein pancakes!"

"Protein _pancakes?_ " she demanded skeptically, but Mikey's 'Aw yes!' was enough to sell her on the idea, and she hurried over just as a ridiculously tall Purple Turtle settled down a stack of flapjacks that was at least a solid foot in height, with thick, dark, freshly poured blueberry syrup dripping over the sides in richly saturated waterfalls.

She must have blacked out for a minute in there.

The next thing she knew _Sandro_ was laughing, and she was brooding over an empty plate and feeling _fantastically fat_ and sticky. She blinked in disorientation as her best friend reached out with a wash rag and covered her mouth and chin to wipe her clean. " _Wildcard_ ," he cackled. "Earth to Wildcard. Can you hear me?"

"They tasted of oatmeal flour, peanut butter, Greek yogurt, banana, and maybe a little sour cream," she mumbled vacantly as Sandro turned the rag over and dabbed syrup off her eyebrow, "and I think the blueberry preserves were made with lemon, blackcurrant, and possibly almond extract. I lost control, Sandro. _I lost control._ "

"A-almond and nutmeg..." a very confused-sounding Purple turtle clarified to an Orange Turtle's: " _Whoa._ How did she do that? Don't _you_ make those preserves, Don?"

Wildcard looked at Sandro's sly grin and the copious blue stains all over the wash cloth. She stiffened and came out of her daze, her face going bright red. "Okay, sorry! Clearly I need to never again eat anything in front of anyone I'm trying to impress!"

"Oh I was definitely _impressed_ ," Sandro drawled indolently, and she snickered despite herself. "That was like almost as much as I ate, where did you _put_ it all?"

"Hey I need my protein!" she defended, with a playful jab at his bicep. "How else am I going to get strong enough to beat you up?" She twisted and looked up at the two adult turtles. "Whose recipe was that? Can I have a copy? Donnie makes _preserves_!?"

"My name is 'Donatello,' Anastasia," Donnie said, and she tried very hard not to let her sudden cringe of panicked heartbreak show. "But yes."

 _Oops._ Though, this close to his critical stare, she could see he had absolutely _mahogany_ -colored eyes beneath those glasses. Why didn't Sandro wear a mask when every other turtle clearly considered them vital? And they looked good—drew attention to the eyes and the personality instead of the mutations! Orange perfectly complemented Mikey's yellowish skin tone and bright blue eyes, and purple went great with dark green and that rich red-brown— _Stop staring you maniac!_

Wildcard blurted: "Then can you take off the 'Kiss the Chef' apron, Mr. Donatello? I feel it has confused me."

* * *

Sandro held his peace until they got to the dojo, and then he broke down pointing and laughing at her. She slapped a hand over her face, but it was fair that _she_ ought to be the embarrassed one every once in awhile. "The _staring!_ D-do you have a crush on m-my _uncle_?" he wheezed.

"No!" she insisted petulantly. "I don't even like boys! It's not my fault your entire family looks very interesting!"

Sandro kept laughing. "Do you like _girls_?!"

"No I don't! I don't like anything!" she stomped. "Look, we Gothamites totally respect _intelligence_! Most of our high-profile super-people don't even have any super powers, they're just brilliant!"

But Sandro had put it together: "Was Donnie your— _ha-ha!_ —favorite comic book turtle!?"

"It-it- It depends on your definition of 'favorite!' Maybe my favorite was grouchy Raphael! There are four for a reason, they're all important!" Sandro didn't buy it, and laughed louder. _Oh god, he knows me._ "Blaaahhh!" She covered her face with both hands and hopped in place. Then she groaned guiltily, and peeked out from between her fingers at Sandro. "Okay. Maybe I have a little... _puppy dog_ crush."

Sandro only laughed louder, as if this was the most fantastic thing ever.

Wildcard was beet-red, and Sandro didn't look like he was going to let this go any time soon, especially since he could so rarely make her feel genuinely flustered about _anything_. So since their roles were flipped anyway, she took the opportunity to kick him hard in the leg. He winced and hopped away from her so as not to get pummeled while laughter had left him so vulnerable. She pounced on him, and overbalanced him, and the two of them hit the ground with a hard _CLACK_ of a shell. She grappled with him, trying to get a good punch lined up. He was _so_ asking for it!

And then an idea hit her as Sandro laughed and wrestled with a grip on her shoulder and forearm, as he turned his head from side to side to keep out of the way of her fists. Time to regain control of this madness! She dropped her weight while letting him keep control over hands. He had a moment to contemplate the grievous error he'd made, with her face right in his, before she gave him a cute little _'chu!'_ smooch upon the snout.

"Wh- _WILD_!"

Ha- _ha!_ Cooties successfully delivered! She had to dodge one _hell_ of a right-hook as she disembarked and fled his wrath. Good thing Sandro had been training her!

* * *

"Sandro," Donatello kept his voice carefully neutral so as not to induce another shut-down, "I am not going to dissuade you two from roughhousing, as clearly it is part of your standard suite of behavioral activities... but do try to remember she doesn't have our hardiness, or our mutant healing factor."

"She _absolutely_ deserved it," Sandro groused as he carried the ice-pack over from the freezer. Still the way he leaned over to press it to her cheek with ginger tenderness suggested the two had done something like this before, and held no grudges.

"I did," Wild grinned. "Was that a limp I saw, San?"

"Twisted my ankle when you tripped me," he agreed irritably.

"You totally deserved it," she glowed victoriously.

"I did," he agreed again, this time sounding _endeared_ to her. "Does that hurt?

"Nahhh. Do we have wraps or something to stabilize your ankle with?"

Donatello looked between the both of them in bewilderment, and then sighed and turned to go mix healing ointments, because clearly the house was once-more filled with miniature roughhousing idiots who would undoubtedly end up requiring medical attention. Wow, _that_ really _was_ nostalgia-inducing. Of course, usually a turtle hadn't been beat up _and_ bandaged by the same brother. But one supposed Sandro was only Raphael's son, not Raphael himself; and with two fewer 'siblings,' Anastasia and Sandro were making due.

* * *

"Okay," Wildcard said as she helped Sandro limp his way to the couch in the living area. "So clearly we're not exercising with my depth perception and your footwork both impacted."

"We could play a video game. Though maybe we've been competitive enough for the day. We're ahead in our homework."

She inventoried activities thoughtfully with a stroke of her chin. Then she snapped her fingers. "We could play with makeup!"

Sandro eyeballed her. "Can you... say it... differently than that, please?"

Wildcard considered, and decided she'd let him get away with needing to reinforce his masculinity at this juncture. "We could play SFX-artists!"

"Yes we could!" he agreed, enthusiasm immediately rekindled by this change in wording.

"Ooh-hoo! I'll get my stuff. Without getting dizzy and falling over. You're going to like this!" She fetched her backpack and came back to him. "I brought spirit gum and liquid latex!"

He tilted his head to the side. "Which are?"

"Spirit gum is for attaching latex or silicone prosthetics," she explained. "we're going to use the liquid latex to smooth over the gaps between the prosthetics and skin, and to cover up rough parts of your scaling to get the rest of the makeup to lay evenly."

"What kind of prosthetic?" He had a feeling he knew, especially when he saw the black fibers of the wig peaking past the lip of her backpack.

" _Ears._ And! I also have something else for you, and I should probably help you put them in now before my hands are covered in makeup. Plus, being a turtle and having a slightly different biology and stuff, they might irritate your eyes." She pulled out a small box and popped it open.

"Colored contacts?"

"Dark brown," she agreed, sitting just beside him. "Not that your gold-flecked, red-copper eyes aren't _beautiful_ , but they're definitely reptilian. I'll show you how to put one in and get one out, and then you should try it yourself. Trust me it's weird and squeamishness-inducing as heck until you get used to it, but then it turns out eyeballs are actually tougher than you realize and can totally handle this kind of stuff."

* * *

"Whoa, what is going on in here...?" Mikey asked curiously, as he noticed the two had taken over the living room but didn't appear to be gaming or studying. As he approached, he was surprised at the wide variety of tubes, bottles, and palettes laying about, all flesh-colored. "Donnie said you got a shiner, but-?" But Wildcard clearly wasn't applying makeup to herself, and in fact she still had an ice pack bandaged to her head.

She was sitting before Sandro, instead, and had leaned forward with a brush in hand. And as Mikey entered, she flicked a devious grin up to him. "It's not done yet..." she drawled. "Are you sure you want to see before it's ready? It won't be impressive. The illusion must be finalized before one can get particularly excited about it!"

Mikey stiffened in surprise, eyes widening. "Are you playing with make-up together?" he whispered in a tight voice. Sandro bristled.

"Of _course_ not," she dismissed with a flick of her hand. "That would imply I am trying to make him pretty. We are playing SFX-artists! Sandro is now scheduled to scare the _shell_ off of Donnie at lunch."

"Can... can I watch...?"

Wildcard looked to Sandro, who was clearly slightly embarrassed. And that was fair, because he was a boy who was being layered in makeup, and it looked like this process was lengthy, and the effect was as-of-yet incomplete. Why had he ever agreed to let her try this the first time? There had been a first time, right? _Omigod._

"Okay," Sandro cleared his throat. "But can you sit slightly off to the side if you're gonna staire, so I'm not... getting... uh..."

"...self-conscious?" Wildcard completed helpfully.

Mikey bounced. "Yes! I can do that!" He darted the rest of the way into the room, and sat down on the carpet, and watched with rapt attention. _Omigod, omigod, omigod._ If Sandro blushed, it was hidden under a smooth cake of flesh-colored cream. _Oh wow._ "H-how did you do the ears?" he had to ask.

"Halloween-style prosthetics. It's easy to get hold of witch noses, devil horns, elven ears, etc, but I managed to buy some regular ears." She was painting red and yellow undertones into the skin as she spoke. "Latex casting is actually pretty cheap and I've been trying to learn how it works. It basically goes like this: You'd use plaster strips to make a cast mold of your snout and beak, and let it harden. Then you take it and apply clay on top to sculpt a nose or lips. You push that into a block of plaster and let it all harden, and then you've made a mold for pouring latex into. I thought it would be a really neat experiment one day, even if the convex shape of the beak might make it a little hard."

Sandro either didn't have anything to say, or didn't feel like he could say what he was thinking in front of Mikey, so Mikey said, "Ho-ly _chalupa_ ," for everyone.

* * *

"Alright, attention children! Attention. I haven't actually had to make a batch of this for humans in years, so I'd like to spot-test it first."

"Oh?" Anastasia asked where she was brushing Sandro's hair at the kitchen table. "Sure!" She bundled the upper layer of hair into a Japanese top-knot.

Wait a minute. Why did Mikey look as enthralled as if someone had left _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ running on a television in the background?

Then Sandro, who was wearing an orange scarf about the lower part of his face, turned to looked smugly up at Donatello.

The high-pitched, effeminate squeal Dontello made as he jumped backward and ended up half on top of the kitchen counter was doubtless incredibly undignified. "HOLY CHALUPA! WHAT THE FUDGECICLES!? JUMPING JACKRABBITS. SHELL!"

"I know!" Mikey squealed giddily, leaning over to touch at the makeup. "Look at him! Look at him, he's so _handsome_! Can you tell at all? I can't!"

"How-!? They eyes-!?" They were brown instead of copper. This face sported ears, painstakingly-drawn eyebrows, warm undertones, and—were those _fake eyelashes!?_

"Contacts," Sandro piped up with boyish smugness, and that voice proved it was definitely Sandro underneath all that makeup.

"How did-!? Why did-!? What would compel you to do this!?" Even as he said it, Donatello could think of a thousand reasons, not the least of which would be _curiousity_ , but the sight of his nephew looking positively human was still so shocking an occurrence that his brain was going to require time to process it all. How had no one in their entire family ever previously thought to do this, even just once?

"Well _this_ is just for fun, but _originally_ we wanted to give him a few seconds of emergency safety time if he ever lost his hood," Anastasia explained as she brushed his hair (hair!) behind him. "And he moaned and griped and wailed just like an adolescent boy ought, but ultimately was extremely patient with me while I applied all this junk, which was saintly of him. Either that or he secretly likes being cosseted." She leaned over his shoulder and passed him a hand mirror. "Whatchoo tink? Bootiful?"

Sandro didn't take offense to her commentary, and instead gathered up the mirror almost eagerly. A gleeful, sly, smug expression crossed his face as he turned his head from side to side. The way he admired her handiwork, and in doing so _admired_ _his own appearance_ , clued Donatello in: Playing dress-up was a gendered activity. And Sandro hadn't possessed three brothers to tease or belittle him; instead he'd started off equipped with a female companion who _clearly_ knew exactly what she was doing. While it was wholly possible that a young April had once entertained the notion of giving them a 'make-over' in all the years they'd known her, she'd never actually suggested it. The dice had never rolled right for one of them to try this before, and the baldness and earlessness and predominant beak had likely seemed insurmountable details, not problems that could be solved. _Wow._

"I really _do_ look slightly Asian," Sandro mused aloud and glanced up as she plopped her chin on his head and draped her arms over his shoulders.

"You really do, and it's not just the color palette I picked either," she giggled. "I think it's the cheekbones, nose, and eyelids. Which is everything, ha, woops!"

"Okay I am taking a picture of you two for posterity's sake," Mikey informed them. "Stay just like that!"

"I still have an ice-pack attached to my face!" Ana squawked indignantly, but Mikey wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so she hurriedly gave Sandro rabbit-ears so that they would be 'fair.'

* * *

Sandro helped Michelangelo cook lunch while a still off-kilter Donatello spot-tested healing ointment on Anastasia's arm. If she suffered an allergic reaction to it, or if he'd made some mistake, better a result on a limb than beside an eye.

"What's in this stuff, Mr. Donatello?" she asked, with a curious sniff.

"Nothing you need to know about," Donatello answered, still a little flustered by the previous events of the hour. But he caught sight of her hurt expression before she bundled it from view, and mentally berated himself. "I'm sorry, that was brusque of me," he apologized to her hesitant glance. "I ought to have said that you needn't worry, as I've been unofficially practicing medicine for quite some time. However, my inventions _are_ all something of a family secret."

"That's neat." The lack of any adverse dermal reaction was promising, so he sat himself down and reached out to take her chin in hand, that he might dab the ointment about her eye. This really was a lovely shiner, and perfect proof Sandro hadn't held back in decking her. "Can you really make _jam_?" Her interest sounded sincere.

"I can make a lot of things," he answered, admittedly a little disarmed by her curiousity now that she'd apparently had the extroversion drained out of her for the afternoon.

"Still, _jam_. That's some pretty old-fashioned home-maker ingenuity right there."

"Well we didn't always have nice things," Donatello explained with, perhaps, a smirk. "So between the four of us we can make just about anything. It is more a question of who got curious about what first, and whether Mikey successfully suckered someone into doing it for him."

Anastasia abruptly giggled. He raised a brow. "Well," she explained herself, "Not everyone expresses affection _boldface_. I think some people might do it by continuing to hand-make blueberry preserves for their little brother, even long after they could get away with purchasing store-bought. Particularly when he might not even notice the difference."

He took a long look at her. "You think that, do you? Mn. You might be right, but don't tell him I said so."

"—Stop tugging on my hair while I'm trying to peel potatoes!" they heard Sandro complaining. "Just because I can't feel each individual root doesn't mean you aren't pulling my head to the side! I'm going to cut myself!"

Donatello shot an annoyed glance into the kitchen as Mikey oozed glee and Sandro chastised him for being immature. "There's a high percentage chance Michelangelo is eventually going to ask you to replicate this feat on himself."

"He-he, I know. But he'll have to spot me, makeup's expensive. I've never had this much fun with it before."

"Do you have few friends, or is it merely that they are all boys?"

"I did just move here," she reminded him. "But... I'm probably not very nice to people my own age. I guess I didn't feel I had much in common with them. I'm not sure anymore."

"You took to Sandro rather immediately."

"Yeah." She puzzled over that as if genuinely perplexed. "I guess I don't even have the excuse of saying he was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and therefore cool on principle. I _could_ tell he wasn't normal of course, and that was interesting, and his voice made it sound like I was talking to someone about my own age." She looked up at Donatello and a little helplessly. "I asked for an explanation for who the costumed ninjas were, and told him I'd buy pizza."

"You did." This explained why Sandro had exploded on him whilst discussing spies.

"Yeah. Maybe that's the definition of serendipity?" Donatello frowned, cued to inspect her more closely. She looked strangely haunted, as if the lucky chance of the duo's meeting occurred to her more often than it ought to have. "I kept expecting him to disappear on me, but he didn't." And that didn't sound wholly constrained to the past, as far as fears went. "We talked for four hours solid. I went home and laughed hysterically into my pillow, and my sugar glider probably though I was possessed."

It was hard to tell whether this child was genuine, manipulative, or some heterogeneous mixture of the two. But his gut—and a younger brother who was unusually good at reading people—had him believing she was more troubled than malicious.

"I'm sorry you don't like me Mr. Donatello," she said at last, startling him, but her face was back to its usual impishness.

He watched her for a moment, so small—barely more than a child—and with one eye just barely on the mend. He leaned forward and applied another layer of ointment. "You... can use 'Donnie,' Ana."

Honestly one had to wonder if she and Michelangelo were not somehow related, her face lit up in such a familiar manner. But she, fortunately, did not take this as an invitation to tackle him. "Kay!" she squeaked.


	36. Birthdays, Confessions, Suspicions

"So, like, as a result of this, I'm gonna inevitably end up in drag," Michelangelo decided he probably ought to prewarn his easily-alarmed brother as the two of them watched the kids head back to the dojo after lunch. "Cause I totally can't help myself, but it'll probably just be once. Cool?"

Donnie gave a short, hard sigh that surely compressed his spine by an inch or so. "I think I knew that was coming."

"Should I have the same black hair?" the Orange Turtle mused aloud.

"Of course not. The Michelangelo whom I grew up with could be nothing other than a _blonde_ , probably with tight hoop curls all the way down to his midshell, and shockingly green eye-shadow; and probably wearing a bright, flame-orange, salsa dress."

"...Wow. Ya know, sometimes it scares me how much you totally know me, bro. So you won't freak out or anything?" _Just to be sure!_

"Of course not. In fact, when you flounce into the room to show off your _radiant beauty_ to Leo and Raph, I'll be following behind with a camera to get pictures of their faces." He rubbed his chin. "We ought to make sure the two of them arguing at the time, so that this counts as some kind of deserved psychological punishment..."

"Awww yesss!" The two youngest brothers grinned at one another, shared a hi-three, butted their fists together, and thus agreed to what would probably amount to their best prank of the year.

* * *

Having hair for a day again had been kinda neat and, as the day drew to a close, Sandro was almost sad to remove his 'costume.' At least two additional pairs of hands made the process faster; They had to make sure no spots of peach cream remained anywhere in the entire lair, much less on his face or clothing. It might have made more sense to shower it all off, but being mobbed by a sibling and two uncles armed with makeup-remover and cotton balls was sort of funny, so he didn't stop them. Maybe he privately liked the attention.

Afterwards, he and Anastasia carefully enumerated and packed away her things, though Donatello offered to store the cosmetics for them so that she need not haul them back and forth every day. They found a drip of foundation to clean up, and Sandro elected to employ a vacuum to clear the premises of residual powders, just to be a perfectionist about the matter. Mikey teased him. Donnie sassed Leo would barely notice if a hippopotamus was in the house, much less such minuscule details.

At the door, at four AM, Sandro hugged her farewell. 'Just in case,' he said, leaned over so his forehead brushed hers. Her previously swollen eye looked much better now, and certainly hadn't impacted her ability to throw sharp implements at him. She waved as she went. _See you tomorrow, Yang._

He glance back to where Donatello was preparing dinner, and smiled to himself. Then he hurried into his room, and pulled out his laptop to sit it upon the desk. 'Authentic Supplies, _'_ showed up amidst his neatly sorted favorites, and he clicked upon it and quickly browsed away from weapons and darts and into joint stabilizers, wraps, clothing articles, period costumes, and footwear. Click, click, and click.

* * *

Leonardo did not comment that the energy of his family had been different over the last few days. Sandro's mirth and energy was the most obvious, of course. Donatello looked calm and serene in a way that typically signaled a system was newly understood and a plan had been set into motion, and so now all that remained ahead was the labor to see it through. Michelangelo hid the difference best, which in Leo's experience meant that he wasn't afraid of getting in trouble.

After dinner, he dressed down out of clothing appropriate for the city, and changed into heavier, oriental cottons. He glanced to Sandro's closed bedroom door, but then went to the dojo alone. Sticks of fresh incense had been lit for Splinter, and Leo add one to it before setting about to water and prune his bonsais. Each one was different. Some occasionally tried to go moldy on him; others seemed intent on dehydrating, but all of them would flourish if he stuck with them long enough.

A nagging feeling tugged at him. He settled down to meditate, to feel the dojo and the lives of the plants and fish within, and to feel the energy of the spaces beyond. But no, it seemed the subject of his troubles was nearby. It lingered, like a charged scent on the air. Eyes cracked open slowly. Leonardo considered the sakura tree over the bridge of his fingers. Then he turned in place, and looked behind himself.

Ah. He reached back, and from the dark crease between floorboards, he picked up a long, black strand of hair.

Leo stood. He walked slowly across the floor, eyes down, though he was not looking for _black_ this time. He smoothed his toes over each rug, and then finally felt it: the lighter color hidden against gold and burnt umber. He squatted down, and carefully picked up a strand of curled blonde. He twirled it between his fingers. This solved one problem and revealed another:

 _Right under my nose, Donatello?_ He narrowed eyes toward the hallway, and shook his head. _I see._

* * *

"I think we need to start stocking the pantry with fresh fruit and snacks," Sandro greeted sleepily. Leonardo, who had been regarding the kitchen's new demotivational posters with dismay, turned to see his nephew was up unexpectedly early.

"I am sorry if I woke you."

"You're not that loud, uncle," Sandro quipped as he went to fill and turn on the electric kettle. Leo was flustered at his own helplessness; what sort of grand-master ninja couldn't even make his own breakfast? "Did you not sleep well last night?" Sandro asked as he went to find the coffee grinds, presumably for Donatello, and that did make it all seem a little more fair.

"I may have risen somewhat early for my morning routine," Leonardo admitted. "Do you still wish to go fishing sometime this week?" Sandro's motions slowed. Leo quickly absolved him: "It's fine. I only though it might be an opportunity to leave the lair and relax or, if you were so inclined, to speak about whatever weighs on you. I know I am not as approachable as Donnie or Mikey, at least not outside the context of ninjitsu. And I do not spend enough casual time with you."

Sandro glanced back hesitantly as he prepared the coffee filter. "I enjoy my morning lessons, uncle. You are the head of the family and it's protector, and you work hard."

"Not that one would know it from how everyone is _behaving,_ " Leonardo mused, narrowing his eyes at the demotivational posters. Sandro's sympathetic and amused snicker drew him back to the present. "Perhaps I could delegate patrol duties better. Donatello mentioned you were having some problems, but I did not want you to feel obligated or pressed to answer. I merely wanted you to know you could confide in me, if desired, and I would listen without judgement."

Sandro finished with the coffee machine and turned it on. He was quiet for a brief moment, and the energy around him was nervous. "I hid that I was going topside." Ah, the boy was already fishing without need for rod or line. "I couldn't have talked to anyone about that. About why."

"Oh? You think so? We all knew that when we started permitting you to roam the sewers unsupervised, you'd steal up top once or twice. We knew _why_ because we'd suffered it ourselves: It grows stifling down here. We just did not expect you to go topside at every opportunity and play _Nightwatcher_."

The boy winced. "So the sanctity of your confidence only lasts until you decide something's gone beyond a threshold, after which you will take whatever action you deem appropriate?" Sandro put bread in the toaster, and then went to get the marmalade. "Sorry uncle, it's just that doesn't sound 'without judgement,' it sounds normal."

Leonardo lifted his chin, and narrowed eyes down at this still very young turtle. "That is something you crave? To divulge your thoughts in full to someone, without consequence, with their hands bound to help?" Sandro grew a little sullen. "Or perhaps, rather, in the hopes of receiving counsel?" _That is the role of a—Oh!_ Leo sat back on his heels, stricken. "Hnn. I will meditate on that." _And read._ But it was time for a change in topic before that glum expression settled: "Would you perhaps like to get an early start in the dojo after breakfast? I have though of a few maneuvers for smaller combatants that you might find useful in sparring with us, and against which you should know the correct parries—for the future."

Let Sandro make of that what he would: something to show off to Raphael, or a clue, or both.

* * *

"So what's in the box?" Le Tiny Chick inquired as they walked, with the little creature she called a 'sugar glider' sitting alert upon the top of her head.

"Dunno! Didn't order it," Mikey shrugged. "Parcel delivery service doesn't reach down here, so we have a pick-up address."

"Makes sense." Pause. "I'm sorry for crying all over you the other day," she mentioned.

Michelangelo laughed. "Naw, it's fine. Everyone gets charged sometimes." He reached down to ruffle her hair. "Raph needs to punch something, Donnie stalks off to calibrate something, Leo hides in the dojo..."

"There's a difference between reaching out to your family and comforting a near-stranger," she disagreed matter-of-factly. "I immediately got the impression you've thought of having kids of your own. Have you?"

"That I- _what_?" he slowed. "Donnie would kill you for putting ideas in my head, yo!"

She peered slyly up at him. "Do your brothers not consider you to be an adult? You handled me incredibly well, as if you could quite literally have an infant show up on your porch tomorrow and go 'yup, that's mine now' and it would make perfect sense.'"

Michelangelo wasn't sure what to make of that. He felt his face coloring.

"Well for whatever it's worth, I think you'd be a great dad," she commented. "You should consider adopting if nothing else works out."

It took a moment for Mikey to realize he'd stopped walking. "H-how would you...? Why would you _say_ that to me?" He turned about to look down at her with a furrowed brow.

She withdrew in surprise. "Did I do something wrong? I didn't mean to be hurtful."

"No, I-" he laughed, or maybe choked, "I've never... _ever_... said anything like that to anyone, not even _close_ to it. I've never even... formulated the thought with words in my head. And you just _sense_ it? Immediately?"

She considered, brows peaked, before saying: "The oxytocin-replete hugs were a bit of a giveaway." Mikey suspected Donatello would know what that meant. Suddenly Le Tiny Chick grinned haughtily and lifted her chin. "I think you need a Lady Friend, too."

Mikey might have exploded with laughter (Oh that's all, huh, a girlfriend and some kids?) but instead he blurted, "So there's this Pizza Lady." Pause. "And she hates me."

Le Tiny Chick's face went slack. "Ho-ly chalupa."

* * *

Sandro saw that Mikey had the box, and so hurried eagerly over to take it. "They don't kid about that 'one-day shipping, do they?"

"Sandro!" Wildcard greeted as she hopped up and down while removing her shoes at the door. "I brought Mumu to visit! See?" And she pushed the animal onto his shoulder.

Sandro blinked at his hitchhiker ('She brought _what_?' Donnie asked from the kitchen) and then grinned wryly. "Ah we meet again señor Mumu." He sauntered over and settled down the box upon the kitchen table. "I see you have once more been shanghaied into service as her trusty animal side-kick. My condolences."

"Is that a _mouse_?"

"Of course not, he is a _flying possum_ ," Sandro lectured his elder uncle as if such presumptions were absurd. "All the same, someone should probably keep him away from the snakes, lest his owner become convinced he requires their tender loving hugs..."

"Hint taken," Wildcard joined him and thanked Donnie for the granola he'd set out for her. She scooped up a bowl and fed a banana chip to Mumu. "What did you order?"

"It's for you, actually," Sandro grinned as he popped the tape on each side. "Would you like to open it, or should I?"

"You bought me a _present_?" Wildcard straightened incredulously and replaced her granola safely on the table. " _Really?_ You have eerily impeccable timing." She pulled out her switchblade and leaned over to help him cut the tape down the center.

"How so?"

"My birthday's coming up this month," Wildcard explained as the two of them folded open the box. "Not this weekend, but next Saturday."

Sandro grabbed her shoulder. Mikey, who to Donatello's intense disgust had been trying to drink some milk straight from the gallon, suddenly lost a great deal of it out his nose. Donatello only failed to comment because he was too busy squealing about the nose-milk all over their pantry floor. "September twenty-second?" the boy asked.

Wildcard perked up. "Uh. Yeah?"

"That's S-sandro's birthday," Mikey sputtered through lactose-induced sinus pain.

"We share a _birthday_!?" Wildcard looked astonished between Mikey, Donatello, Mumu (as if surely he had all the answers), and lastly Sandro. "Well," she determined at last, "I'd say that this should definitively disprove astrology for all involved parties, but then I remember that your uncles were quadruplets and so probably never operated under any such illusions to begin with." Her gaze grew long. "Oh _shell_ , I need to get a present for _you_."

Sandro cleared his throat, because this timing really _had_ been eerie. "Speaking of presents." Wild recalled the existence of the box and then dug downward through a wholly unconscionable amount of foam beads (which stuck all over her), and at last pulled out two dark, leathery pieces of footware from within. "They're called _jika-tabi_." ('I hope you are cleaning that up,' one turtle reproached another in the background.)

"You bought me _ninja boots_!?" she demanded. (And in the background: 'I thought I wasn't allowed to use a mop anymore,' the younger uncle asked. 'Ya know, after last time.')

"Size four, right? We didn't have any hand-me-downs that tiny," Sandro drawled. ('See, this is why it isn't _your_ kitchen' 'You take that back, it's _so_ mine!' 'Oh? Do you want mold in your kitchen? Is that it, _Barbarian-chan_?' 'Wait, am I _allowed_ to use a mop again? Iunno, you're not being consistent, I might get in trouble.' 'Mikey. Milk. On the floor. Fix. _Now_.')

"SSSsssquee _eee_!" Instead of punching him for the height joke, Wildcard threw her arms (and two tabi, and a live pocket knife, and some foam) around Sandro and hugged him tightly. A sugar glider was nearly squished in the process. "I laaahhhvvvv themmmm soo muucchhh!"

* * *

"We'll start talking to them about April and Raphael after the weekend," Donatello laid out how the next phase of their plan would work. "For now, you're right: Studies show unstructured play helps children learn to manage stress, and watching these two slowly unpack their social bonding into a new environment is giving me some glaring insights into how differently Sandro acts when he feels he has control over his situation."

"Bro, are you tellin me you need scientific papers to tell you kids need play-time?" Michelangelo was skeptical that even Donatello could be _that_ out-of-touch with the obvious.

"Well, _no_ ," Donatello stammered, "but if he wanted me to play with him, I'd design activities for us to do. I'd assume I _ought_ to, so as not to be boring. I wouldn't think to let _him_ lead _me_ around doing whatever ideas came to him."

"Pssh. That's why you have me, bro. Teamwork!"

Donnie sighed but gave him the hi-five he was fishing for. "I'm still concerned. Have you noticed he always says goodbye like it might be last time he ever sees her? I'm just not sure whether it's best to address it _now_ or _later,_ seeing as it will segue into a topic about his parents."

"Naw, don't let it segue, bro. Sometimes stuff's gotta get repeated till it sticks: remind him she'll still be there t'morrow. Brains gotta steep in ideas, yo. They're like tea."

"Like _tea_?" Pause. "Well, I suppose _someone_ had to stand in for Leo. Speaking of which, I am scheduled for patrol. Stick to the plan."

"Okay! I promise not to burn the house down while you're gone!"

"Why. Why would you feel the need to specify that. Why, Mikey."

* * *

Michelangelo peeked into the dojo to find the kids had just finished putting on protective gear, and that Sandro was making sure Le Tiny Chick wrapped her feet securely until the new tabi had broken in. "Hey, um," he called to them. "Can I watch?"

"Sure!" a chorus greeted him, and he hurried in and settled himself down on his knees to watch, the way he would have when he and his bros had been children.

"Okay," Sandro stood, "make sure you test the grips before you start doing anything particularly—"

She rocketed past him, squealing 'Wee!' and dove into a series of handsprings and jumps before slipping and falling with a crash.

"—exciting..." He shook his head and started stretching his wrists and shoulders.

The girl snickered and wiggled her toes. Then she casually pushed herself up into a bridge—something no turtle could really do—and arched her spine with a stretch that crackled. Sandro called her a 'show-off' as he warmed for practice. 'Boring-pants!' she ribbed back, before kicking off the ground and rising into a handstand. She balanced on one hand, and then jumped to the other hand. Then she put both hands down and arched her back and weight from side to side, respecting her center of balance.

"You ever heard of calisthenics?" Sandro asked as she teetered and he stretched more conventionally (boringly). "The plainer forms are what my everyone has me doing instead of weightlifting. The premise is training only with your own body weight, but I thought it might suit you because street-art has come up with some pretty show-offy moves."

"Given how you resemble a high school starting quarterback, I'll start stalking 'calisthenics' on Youtube just as soon as I figure out how to spell it."

"Well, here's something: could you do a push-up like that?" Sandro was doing far more conventional push-ups at the moment, but he _was_ doing them with just one hand.

"What, vertically? I'm not sure." Her voice grew suspicious. "Are you trying to get me to fall?"

"Aw, are you afraid? Don't worry, I'll patch up your bloody nose if you face-plant, princess." _(Princess!)_

"Oh-ho! You're on, _sweet damsel!_ " A shaky, slow, hesitant descent followed. Woops!

"You have to slide your balance forward," Mikey piped up. "Elbows fold back—yeah, like that!"

She situated her weight and, arms shaking, pushed herself slowly back upright. Michelangelo and Sandro were both impressed, and the former clapped excitedly. "Oh, that _burns_. Ha! _Dank_ oo, Mikey...!"

"Yo, go easy! One for now, two for later!" He whispered questioningly to Sandro: "How strong is she?"

"Strong," Sandro admitted quietly. "It's just hard to tell 'cause we're so different. But this is her thing as much as it is ours. Really."

* * *

"Can I show off in front of Mikey?" Wildcard asked. "Before we get to my training, since I'm a complete newb."

Sandro retrieved his tonfa and gave them a twirl. "Now we're talking. Are you going to make me break a sweat, or go easy on me like last time." He tossed her the bundle of throwing stars, and she grinned fiendishly and counted off a small handful.

"Oh-ho! I'mma hit you hard, and I'mma only take four to do it. _Watch me_."

Sandro slide into a defensive stance and ordered with a smirk: "Throw then, cocky loudmouth."

"Lesssss dooo deeesss!" she agreed with a clap, gathering herself up and stepping back. She smeared her feet over the ground as if testing traction. Then she spun about like a ballerina, with stars that whistled through the air like silver feathers, and no sooner had they left her fingers than she curved diagonally backwards, jumped onto one hand and then the other, and brought her legs around like a slingshot with a fourth start clutched between the tabi's _toes_. Flick! She rocked, pushed, and leaped back up to her feet.

Clack-clack-click-THUCK. "Ow!" Sandro laughed, grinning at the blade of silver embedded in his wrist-guard. "Yes! I even knew it was coming, and _still_ -!"

"Wahoo! Booya! Victory dannncee! I told you! _Ha_!"

"Time out!" Mikey exploded in alarm, startling them both. "Emergency intervention! That is the worst dancing I have ever seen, yo! You need moves!" He was halfway into standing up before pausing. "Wait, am I allowed to do that? Donnie told me not to steal playtime from you."

"By all means, save us!" Wildcard gestured rapidly that he should come out and join them. "It's not just me either, have you seen _him_?!"

"Hold a second, we are _great_ at Dance Dance Revolution," Sandro countered.

"Newb, that is like being great at _Guitar Hero_ vs. knowing how to shred with _Aerosmith!_ " Wildcard shouted. "Suck it up, you're my new dance class partner _princess_ _,_ let's do this!"

* * *

"Were you injured practicing the kata we worked on this morning?" Leo asked with concern, once morning had dawned and Anastasia had again been sent on her way. Sandro blinked up from where he'd been massaging a sore wrist. Donatello frowned. Sandro laughed.

"No. Mikey is teaching me how to break-dance," he explained. "And my shell is fine for spinning on, but my arms are not used to that."

Leo blinked at him. "Is he also teaching you how to beat-box?"

" _No_ ," Donatello intoned prohibitively, as if forestalling some event rather than answering the question.

Leo sighed and looked plaintively to Sandro. "This one," he jerked a thumb at Donatello, "never knows how to have _fun_ anymore."

Donatello, looking absolutely stricken by who had made this accusation, picked up his Bo, and lunged.

A fight of epic proportions and loud insults broke out across the kitchen, from which Leo just _barely_ managed to save his dinner from feeding the floor by sending it to skid harmlessly across the table with the lightest of tosses.

Sandro sat back in his chair, temporarily flabbergasted by the fact that _all_ of his uncles had been crazy, over-energetic, crime-fighting ninja teenagers once upon a time and so, yes, they all _did_ know how to break-dance, and beat-box, and they probably all had favorite pop music stars. It was sort of _strange_ the things they'd remembered to pass on to the next generation, contrasted against all the things that had gone forgotten.

* * *

[Author's Note] I feel like this chapter almost needed a recap so many things happened. Mikey has planned a drag prank, Sandro and Wild share a birthday—Wait, what was that about a Pizza Lady!? And what exactly *does* Leo know about the kids? QUICK MIX UP THE COLORS TO SHOW INTERDEPENDENCE, Mikey likes Blueberry and Leo likes Marmalade (made with oranges), which _must_ mean Raph likes Grape and Donnie likes Strawberry!


	37. Sexual Maturity

[Author's Note] This chapter is unabashedly disgusting! Woo!

* * *

 _Chu~!_

Sandro woke up slowly out of some kind of soupy and plesant dream, feeling incredibly comfortable. More comfortable than he ought to have been given that it was Thursday, and this would be the last he'd see of Wild till the weekend was over. He glanced to his clock and thought he might as well get up for the day, and join Leo for drills in the dojo before he left for the evening. Practicing with Wild had its own benefits, but it was no substitute for training under a master of nin-

Sandro paused, because something smelled peculiar and his pillow was not under his head. He'd been holding it against his chest like a stuffed animal, almost? Except his leg had been flung over it, too.

He sat bolt upright and threw his blankets aside. Nothing hurt, did it? Not exactly, but there was an unexpected pressure low in his bowels and something was—he touched his tail and then snatched his fingers back, because the underside of it was smeared with translucent, off-white slime.

What. The. _Oh._

Sandro leaned forward as far as he could, even as the lower lip of the plastron made it impossible for him to see his own cloaca, or to determine whether it was the source of his present situation. Disturbed, he reached under the reflexive curl of his tail. Was it...? It _was_. Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew. _Congradulations, Sandro, I think you just had your very first wet dream._

And then his shoulders tensed and he lifted his head and his eyes widened in mortification, because he was suddenly irrevocably and absolutely sure he'd been dreaming about _Wildcard kissing him._ His primitive and reflexive shriek of horror was apparently loud enough that Donatello felt the need to check up on him, and without _knocking_ at that, which led to _another_ shriek of horror and a rapid scramble to cover himself with his pillow, even as there wasn't much to see. The _smell_ was certainly there.

"Tissues! _Tissues!_ " he demanded of a red-faced uncle, who had immediately figured out what had happened, turned away, and called back in a very understanding voice:

"Yup. Got it," as he went to find him exactly that.

Needless to say that despite an hour-long shower and a thorough scrubbing of every inch of his own skin, Sandro still felt a little off-balance, even betimes Leo had departed and Wildcard had safely arrive. He was bracing himself for the first half of the day to feel... _weird_. On seeing her ecstatic grin, he wasn't even sure how he felt. Could she maybe manage to give him a few hours playing video games until he could... blot out the compromising state in which he'd woken up from his memory?

But if he thought his morning had already been _gross_ and _confusing_ , well it turned out that Wildcard was smiling like a crazy person for a reason, and that—knowing her as well as he did—Sandro really ought to have expected that she'd somehow magically one-up the _entire univers_ e. He barely caught a whiff of her, or had an instant to contemplate something was wrong, and then she'd squealed out with maddened enthusiasm:

"I started my period today! Look!" and the hand she showed him was covered in an alarming amount of tacky, slimy, red stuff. "Isn't that _cool_!?"

Sandro stared at her.

Then his brain flipped the table it had been working at all morning, and wandered off to go take a coffee break. Somewhere off to the side, Donatello blue-screened. Mikey couldn't have said anything if he'd tried. Left bereft of brain and adults both, Sandro's mouth said with surprising lack of distress: "Ya smell like somethin' _died_."

Wild blinked rapidly, and sniffed at herself, and then started giggling and snorting. "I think need a shower," she snickered.

"Or at least that deodorant stick ya keep stealing," Sandro agreed, doing surprisingly well despite the missing brain. "But first, clearly ya need some help," he took her arm by the wrist, and led her to the sink. He upended a bottle of soap onto her palms. "Scrub. And under the nails, too." She diligently obeyed, and he flicked on the water and glanced down at her. "You okay?"

"Oh, I am _high as a kite_ ," Wildcard admitted with flaming-eyes and an ear-to-ear grin. "It happened at the Rec center! Ms. Jane was the one who spotted it and sent me to the showers early, because I'd almost ended up _totally humiliated in front of everyone_ , and then—omigod—I spent _two hours_ in a public bathroom trying to figure out tampons! I didn't even know what the topography was like down there, and Google took me to some _highly questionable_ places when I made inquiry! Though Wikipedia actually has nice technical diagrams; just be smart and don't scroll down to the creepy diseases. And then I had to actually _do it_ and those things go _inside a person_! INSIDE! Injected like a big plastic and cotton syringe! WHY!? And it makes me tired, too—the period, not the tampon—so I had to throw back three Red Bulls just to not fall asleep! Wee! I'm a firework! Psseewww!"

"Wild?" Sandro cleared his throat.

"Yes?"

"Thank ya for always puttin' my problems into perspect've for me," he told her sincerely, and gave her a warm squeeze about the shoulders.

"No problem, sweet damsel! Consider it my highest honor!" she posed gallantly. He smirked.

"So ya wanna go train in the dojo 'til that caffeine high comes crashin' down?"

"Yes! Race you there, bro!" She took off like a bullet, and Sandro was glad he'd waited until her hands were clean.

He turned to follow her and caught sight of his uncles watching him with wide eyes and no small amount of trepidation on their faces. He blinked quietly at them and then slowly shrugged, not really feeling much of anything other than tolerant amusement. "At least I'm never _bored._ "

* * *

Wildcard made it two hours before her energy tanked like a science fiction sound-effect. Sandro suggested she take a nap on the couch, but the dazed away she stumbled off made him delay in stripping off his own knee and elbow pads so that he could follow and make sure she didn't give up and try to crash on the hallway floor instead.

She made it, but was probably unconscious before he chin hit the center cushion. Zzzzz. Sandro shook his head and then came up to lean over and push both her legs up over the lip of the couch. He took the fleece from over the back of the couch, and shook it out over her. Wild was so small, there was an entire cushion's worth of room to sit in advance of her head, and so that was what he decided to do.

He muted the television speakers and flicked through the less-involved video games. _Animal Crossing_ , maybe? He sat back into the cushions to relax and mindlessly farm cute collectibles. Had he ever seen Wildcard down for the count, before? She'd dosed against him before, but not really slept. He glanced down, raising his elbow a bit that he might better see her. Then he reached over and pulled the edge of the fleece up over her head to dim the lights. His fingers brushed her hair, and then went to linger where the tinge of yellow about her eye showed the bruise had nearly completely healed. His palm settled over the warm shape of her cheek.

Heh.

He pulled his hand out from under the blanket and draped it across her in a companionable embrace, and went back to playing his game with her tucked there.

* * *

"So..." Donatello broached quietly as he leaned over the couch to inspect the unconscious nuclear explosion asleep beside Sandro. "You... handled that rather admirably."

"There's a lot of 'just rollin with it' in this friendship," Sandro murmured he filled his avatar's house with yet another tiny, dancing cactus-teapot-thing. "The pace of Wildcard leaves little room for dilly-dally and I don't think she has a maximum setting. At this rate, I'll have grown entirely immune to the element of surprise by early spring."

"That could make you a great ninja one day," Donatello did observe. "Though it's becoming clear why you are... apprehensive about introducing her to April."

"Iunno," Sandro mused, "pack five or six energy drinks into her and she might be able to pave rainbows, expletives, memes, and lewd innuendo all over every conceivable objection to her presence. Mom might not know what hit her."

"Or she'd call Arkham Asylum to ask if they lost any juvenile inmates earlier in the year," Donatello speculated dryly. Sandro gave no indication at all that his uncle had struck close to the mark. Some secrets were easy to keep. "She's cute. Clearly _psychotic_ , but cute." Sandro looked up in surprise, glad to hear her hysteria from earlier that morning had been forgiven. "We grew up with Raph, Mikey, and Casey, so..."

"She even used to play hockey," Sandro mentioned, and Donatello's distaste made him grin. "It means a lot to me that you both sort of like her."

Donatello watched him for a moment and then smiled gently. "It's going to be fine, Sandro. Even if it takes some time, it'll turn out fine." He straightened up from the couch. "Mikey's out on patrol. And so far Leonardo is none the wiser, which honestly doesn't surprise me given how little time he spends outside his own head."

Sandro frowned. "I wouldn't underestimate him. He's out there every single night. He _has_ to be alert."

Donatello opened his mouth to say something, but then apparently decided not to bad-mouth Leo in front of Sandro. Instead he settled on saying something unexpectedly informative: "Raphael's temper always served the interesting dual purpose of keeping Mikey entertained and Leo out of the astral plane. Sometimes it gets strange here without him, like a piece of ourselves is missing." He smiled thinly. "We'll start talking strategy sometime next week." He turned and went to occupy the dojo for a few hours, leaving Sandro alone with some bewildered thoughts.

Well, not alone. Sandro glanced to where a piece of himself still slumbered, and thought maybe this had been Donatello's way of illustrating that despite any technical misgivings, he understood.

* * *

"What are we playing?" was Wildcard's first question as she poked sleepily out from under her fleece. "And, more importantly, does this mean are we fans of the (ironically named) _New York Red Bulls_?"

"Animal Crossing," Sandro looked down and noticed the sports print on the fleece. "Yeah we have a positively un-American obsession with the Soccer World Cup in this family. How are you feeling?"

"I'll feel much better just as soon as we put that Archaeopteryx fossil on display in our house. You weren't going to sell it, were you?"

"Of _course_ not. Why would we sell our _dinosaur fossils_? This is my favorite dinosaur! We'll put it where we had the cabana chair, that thing was starting to look trashy with our current decor anyway."

She sighed contentedly and nuzzled back into her fleece. "I knew I could count on you."

"Can I ask you about something?" he asked as he reallocated furniture items and changed the wallpaper. She hummed an affirmative. "Well," He cleared his throat, "If we plan on growing up together from here on out, we kinda have to admit we missed the innocent seven-to-eight-year-old age range. We're starting off as teenagers, and there are some things we can't do."

"Uh, is this about—?"

"—the handful of crotch goo you so _proudly_ presented to me upon entering the domicile?" he queried, and glanced flatly down at her. "Why _no_ Wild, why would you presume that?"

"... Wow, I'm really sorry."

Sandro considered this, because an apology was a step up with her. He turned back to his game with a shrug. "You had a traumatic coming-of-age experience in the middle of a public building, and then had no one your own gender to confide in. You then preserved the gruesome story evidence in the same way as a three year old boy might show off a booger, dead bug, or picked-off scab. Which is proof that you are disgusting and woefully immature, and need to grow up a bit. But," he kept his attention on his game so he could make sure he was saying this exactly right: "The fact that you chose to confide in _me_ is not something I want to sacrifice just because we are different genders. What I'm trying to say is: I'm willing to serve as your proxy sister, when you need one. "

She was quiet for a long moment, as if the gerbils inhabiting her brain had to run about and sort and file everything they had just heard. Then she asked, "The way I'm your brother?"

He nodded. "I'm still going to smack you over the head the next time you're so _effing gross_. You're lucky I figured out how to handle you today, by the way, or that could have permanently estranged the two unfortunate adults in the room. Like, Donatello, in particular, can be judge-y. We need to work on building you a filter, or one day you're going to end up ruining your chances at winning over the hearts of people you seriously _like_."

Wildcard was quiet a long moment. "Okay," she said, and she sounded like she really meant it. "You know... you always make the most beautiful arguments."

Sandro smirked to himself, but then was belatedly shocked because something didn't line up quite right. One hand left his controller as he twisted to look down at her. "What?"

"Your voice is always pretty too, and moves around like you are telling an enthralling story," she commented, her gaze long. "Which is kinda funny, since it's still burred and cracks. But it goes back and forth: first sly, then deadpan, next chastising, then soft. And you're bookish and it makes me envious, cause you string words together so perfectly that they all mean something, when mine all just explode out and carry me along with them."

"N-no, you-" That didn't line up with the rest of his experience in this place, in this sewer, between these walls, "It's ya just lemme talk, is what it is."

"Well something else has been bothering me," she transitioned, sounded a little upset. "It's in the same vein of things we can or cannot do as teenagers. You and I touch a lot in a given day. Roughhousing, hugging; we stand very close while learning new kata. I'm presently using your thigh for a pillow and you've done much the same against me. But is that kind of platonic intimacy going to turn inappropriate? Do we have to _stop_?"

Unknowingly, Wildcard had hit on the crux of the issue he'd woken up with. He paused his game, and sat back, and tried to think of what to do. At last he took a deep breath, and admitted very quietly: "I had an erotic dream about you last night; and it made me feel violated, like someone else was putting thoughts in my head which _they thought_ were natural for a teenage boy, but which I wanted nothing to do with. I don't want you looking at me like that, like I'm even _capable_ of feeling stuff I shouldn't, or like you'd have to think twice about hugging me. I haven't gotten to have a sibling my entire life, and it was like the dream wanted to _steal_ that from me."

She tilted her head back and looked up at him with furrowed brows and gleaming, intelligent eyes. After a moment, she slowly asked, "You feel your own dream was _gaslighting_ you?" Sandro hadn't heard that terminology before and wasn't sure how to answer. "Has someone ever done that to you for real?"

"What's it even mean?"

Wildcard propped herself slowly upright, and scooted close to talk with him at an equal level. "To 'gaslight' someone is to manipulate them into doubting their perception of reality. You de-legitimize their beliefs, using denial, misdirection, charged words, and convenient misinterpretations of the truth. It can be done unintentionally, by people who are very good debaters and have strong opinions or agendas. I only ask because it sounded unusual to have such strong feelings of _anger_ towards the relatively mundane problem of getting a boner."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Cut it. Your comments about needing Google's assistance earlier in the day revealed you aren't as lewd as you pretend."

"Shell!" she recoiled with a hard laugh and a reddened face, and slapped her hand over her mouth. "Eh-heh. Um. _Shit_. Well, I get by on bravado. _You_ sound disgusted with yourself. Would you be disgusted with _me_ if I were the one confessing to odd dreams or—even one step further—developing romantic feelings for you?"

He frowned, looking down at his controller. Then he quickly shook his head. "No."

"San, I think you are too hard on yourself. Dreams are _dice_. They are not prophetic, and they don't come from deep within. And, furthermore, the inside of someone's head should already be a safe place to assemble weird thoughts, reflect on them, and discard them without judgement. I get the sense you are scared things will change, and to be honest I'm kinda worried people might treat us differently based on their expectations; but if you promise not to pull away from me in a fit of psychological constipation..."

"...then we can probably trade loads of unnecessarily awkward conversations in exchange for keeping our ridiculously over-clingy friendship?" Sandro completed wryly. Hazel eyes gleamed at him. He smirked, thought about this for a bit, and then lifted an arm. She snuggled in against the side of his plastron, and he draped an arm about her. She shared her fleece.

"I need you, by the way. You're my family." She stole their controller and un-paused the game. "Totally independent of whether I want to snog you or not."

He folded both arms around her and gave her a long, tight hug.

 _Mine_.

* * *

Sandro, who for whatever reason didn't want to train alongside Donatello in the dojo today, suggested they go to the exercise room, a circular and well-like chamber outfitted with equipment such as a pull-up bar, a sizable assortments of weights, and punching bags. The room lacked for the same level of Japanese decor and had it's own boombox, but someone had cut Japanese sigils into the concrete, and the floor sported a familiar rug.

The chin-up bar was placed high, and Sandro gave Wild a boost up to reach it. She'd taken his suggestion of researching calisthenics to heart, and had some maneuvers to show off. He sat down on the bench beside the punching bag, and watched her as he pulled on gloves to protect his knuckles.

"Can I ask a random question?" she asked as she climbed her feet up the wall and hooked her knees around the bar.

"Hailing frequencies open," he stood to have at that punching bag.

She stretched her arms and cracked one shoulder. "Do you wear the most clothing of all your turtle family members?"

"Ayup. But I've always _had_ access to clothes, and they haven't." He paused in pummeling the bag. "Wait a minute. If today is awkward topic day, there's something I should bring up with you." She was doing one-hundred-and-eighty-degree sit-ups, which was very impressive. "Don't go looking for my tail."

"Why not?" she wondered innocently.

"Aside from it bein' below my waistband, under the lip of my shell, and anatomically associated with my ass? Hmm, I wonder." But he thought better of this approach, and reached behind himself, and then walked up to her. "Here." He drew out the lower two-thirds of his tail, all scutes and spikes. "Satisfied?"

Hazel eyes went wide, and she unfolded herself from the chin-up bar and dropped to the ground. "It's a tttaaaaillll...!"

"I'm glad I thought to do this now instead of waiting to get it yanked on one day. Yes, Wild, it's a tail."

"Can I... can I touch it?" she wondered, clearly in awe.

"Well this or thereabouts isn't private. But don't pull. And I don't want to hear any innuendo, period." He experienced a brief moment of panic as he handed the limb over to her, because he'd seen how vigorously she'd pet Lady Smiles-A-Lot, but apparently Wildcard appreciated this was both attached to him and a little more intimate than other parts of himself.

"You know," she murmured as she had a look, "I don't think I had any idea what a turtle tail looked like."

"Well you wouldn't have, if you'd only ever seen a red-eared slider. Their tails are like little pins. This is stout, I guess, more of a snapper or green sea-turtle tail or something."

"It has a row of _spikes_ , like it belongs on a dinosaur," she disagreed, turning it gently over to find the pale underbelly. "Though I guess the rest of your spine decided to fuse into a shell, so hey it can look like whatever it wants. Is it conical, or...?"

"Sorta wedge-shaped," he reflected.

"Do you stuff it down a pant leg?"

"It curls underneath me."

"Does it like me?"

Sandro glared at her. _I said no—!_ She raised her brow and showed it to him, because it was clearly wrapped around her wrist. He sighed. "Okay, fair. I can control its general movements, but its reflexes are somewhat involuntary. It likes to curl up, like a monkey tail or turtle tail—I suppose?—but really more like it skipped a few ancestors, had an identity crisis, and decided it belonged to a seahorse."

She snickered and gently detached it to offer it back to him. "Well I think it is as suited to you as either arm, either leg, the shell and plastron, and that handsome face," she told him, and he felt a little bashful (though glad she hadn't described it as 'cute' or something). "Thanks for giving me a heads-up not to touch _anyone's_ tail, it's totally something I would have done."

He tucked it back behind himself. "Yeah, that had dawned on me."

"I'm only boringly human," she said with a cross of her arms and a furrow of her brow. "It doesn't seem fair I stick my hands all over you because _you're not_. Now I've gotten to touch your face, your shell, and your tail. But I have nothing to trade within the bounds of the appropriate... Do I?"

Sandro stilled and glanced slowly back up at her. "Ah..." He looked away. "Never mind."

"No, wait a minute, I'm listening. What do I have that's as exciting as a shell?"

Sandro shifted his weight awkwardly. "Your hair," he said at last, with a wince. "Would that be weird?"

* * *

And that was how Donatello found the two watching videos describing how to french braid hair, with Sandro sitting on the kitchen table behind her, leaned over her with his fingers buried knuckle-deep into blonde curls.

"This is a lot harder than it looks," Sandro realized, because he'd yet-again gotten it all horribly wrong. He decided to start from scratch and released the hair and mussed it out. She raised her chin and he grinned, giddily pawing curls back from her temples and forehead, and scratching through he roots to straighten the strands. "You look like you're going to fall asleep," he teased.

"I might, actually," she hummed. "I can't believe you went three months wanting something as simple as to touch my hair and _didn't say anything_."

"I had no idea _anyone_ liked having their hair played with," he complained. "How could I possibly know that? Does it look like I have a wide variety of people to randomly learn that information from?"

"You could have asked your mom, right?"

"Arg. Oh, _shut up_ Wild, it felt _weird_ to ask!"

"Pff, well, I'm falling asleep to the world's longest scalp massage," his companion cooed blearily with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Carry on with your blunders, my sweet innocent terrapin, carry on."

He laughed, and started pulling the hair into a lattice of pieces again. "Laugh it up, fuzz-ball, I will master this before the day is out."

"Here," Donatello said, surprising both of them as he came up beside where they were sitting. "Like this."

Sandro thought Wildcard might die from joy at so much attention, but he himself looked to his uncle in bafflement. "What do you know about hair?" he wondered.

"I am your mother's best friend, Sandro," Donatello reminded him with a youthful grin the boy wasn't accustomed to seeing on him. "I happen to know a _great many_ things. Including..." He leaned over and pushed a small box into Wildcard's hands, and she came rapidly awake to take it.

"What's this?" she wondered. "It smells of flowers."

"Herbal sachets to alleviate the symptoms of the _feminine_ _situation_ you confronted us all with this morning," Donnie quipped as he showed Sandro how to structure the braid. Wild sank into a cloud of embarrassment she absolutely deserved. "Put them in eight ounces of hot water, and don't take more than one a day." Wild mutely covered her face and Sandro snickered to note that even her ears had gone red.


	38. Getting Old

[Author's Note] Because we haven't gotten to see Joker enough lately.

* * *

It was queer, getting old. One felt more and more like a background cast member in the stage play of one's own life. No longer did one serve in the role of protagonist or villain, and one's own story was effectively _told._ Done. Finished.

An old Prima Donna became _auxiliary_ , a unit of _another person's_ story, the mentor onto a new hero or the creator of a newer monster. One watched the understudy take up the leading role; One set _their_ journey into motion. It felt strange to put so much of oneself into another person, feeding them one's own lifeblood, all while knowing (while _intending!_ ) that they should eventually leave the nest one day.

What was Joker going to do with himself when Wildcard was grown? Disappear? He could not return to being a much of a villain, not after all the diapers he'd changed. For starters, he'd be two decades older (and slower). More importantly: he was out of practice at holding _unwavering convictions_. Still, he'd have to give her up one day, and when empty-nester syndrome hit, he'd need something to _do_.

"Are you lonely?" his daughter asked him as they walked through the aisles of the supermarket that Friday evening, the tail of her exquisitely tasteful french braid bobbing about her shoulders.

"Not particularly," Joker remarked, forearms leaned casually over the push-bar of their cart. "Public school took up eight hours of your day, daily, and then you'd usually take two or three additional hours to actually come home. I'm actually seeing you more often than I ever did in Gotham."

"Well, something's on your mind," she prodded. Joker glanced over at her. "You've gotten really upset twice in recent memory."

"Oh boy, do I know it," her father agreed. "Slimy of me, relying on my own kid to keep my marbles together." He tilted his head to the side. "I _think_ what I need is a job."

"Not a girlfriend?"

"Some sort of career will present me with goals and force me to socialize. More importantly, I've realized that I really want to help support your friendly overtures towards Sandro's family. So let me explain my reasoning: A lot of your idiosyncrasies might be explainable by my occupation if I manage to find the _right job_. The fact that I'm presently unemployed isn't doing you any favors when you're spinning narrative."

"Then you should open a restaurant!" Aww, she had such tremendous faith in him.

"Let's aim a little lower. Something I could walk away from if it turned out to be a bad idea. You are still an unchaperoned minor in a city with a curfew, after all."

"Alright then, well what criteria can we list for this job?" she wondered aloud. "Has to be a job that's always 'in the know,' your brain's an encyclopedia of current events. It should also explain why I'm grizzled, independent, and witty at this young age. "

"Cannot determine if the child's grasp of vocabulary really _is_ this poor, or if her usage of 'grizzled' is simply another manifestation of her bombastic persona." He tapped his fingers against the cart. "Well, I can fudge the paperwork and background-check for nearly anything, but I can't hold a station that puts together portrait rosters, or that data will eventually percolate it's way over to a certain someone. _P_ _olice officer_ is off the table. I've considered 'private investigator' because of that whole 'in-the-know' thing, but you still haven't met Sandro's parents, and work like that would take me out of town. Maybe later; I think it would be fun to give you an excuse to request sleep-overs."

"Whoa! Awesome idea! That's so thoughtful of you, dad! Hmm. So we've got some things we could match it against: sleight-of-hand, nocturnal schedule, self-defense, in-the-know, relationship-to-cooking, understanding-of-chemistry, kid-is-grizzled—" She spun to face him and snapped her fingers. "A _bartender!_ "

Joker jumped and looked at her with wide-eyes. "A _bartender_?"

"Bartenders know _everything_! I think I even know a place!" she realized. "There's this dive bar called Cashew's that has a shoot-out at least once every two weeks, and they're looking for an experienced tender after the old one quit. It's smack dab in the middle of neutral territory, right where I normally roamed at night. In fact, I met Sandro just a few blocks away! You'll probably have to work weekends, but I'm _sure_ we can adapt."

"That... is... _brilliant!_ " The two shared a loud hi-five (and then both had to shake out their hands from the pain of it, snickering all the while).

"By the way," she segued, "I have a question. Why are we in a Target instead of a Walmart? I seem to remember a rant back when I was eight about how the entire brand is clearly bewitched."

Joker sighed. "Look, we only came in here for the special on toaster ovens."

She looked into the cart. "But we already have a shower curtain, a bath rug, measuring cups, a blender, brand new Masterchef knives, a whisk, three wooden spoons, a saucepan, a pot, two frying pans, a new spring-form, six sets of hinges, a shelf, two vases, a Phillips head screwdriver, a new television, a new set of matching dishware, six mugs branded with Monty Python jokes, a coffee maker, three framed paintings, two shelves, a romance novella, seven different kinds of fruit, brownie mix, sixteen separate pieces of winter clothing, and a poinsettia. And the toaster ovens are _over there_."

He looked down. "Oh. So we have. And so they are. Hmm."

"We should probably come here more often."

"I like the ambiance."

"Technically we did need most of this."

"Wait just a minute-!"

The two of them looked at one another, furrowed their brows, gave 'gosh darn it they got me' gestures with closed fists, and muttered a simultaneous utterance as if it were a curse: " _Target._ "

* * *

'Parents are just about to arrive,' Sandro tapped out on his phone as dusk arrived. He tossed a raw fish to Smiles, and she caught it with a happy snap. 'Will probably do radio silence while they're here.'

'No Problem. Dad & I postponing camping trip to birthday week since you'll be busy that Monday & Friday anyway, and we'll have more time to successfully get eaten by a bear. Fixing up house today instead.'

'What needed fixing?' He tossed the phone onto the covers as he made his bed.

'I'll tell you about it later.' Sandro paused and quirked a brow, wondering if he ought to read into that, but then she followed it up with a quick: 'I dare you to braid your mom's hair.'

He scowled and grabbed the phone. 'What? No. How would I explain my sudden proficiency?'

'Blame YouTube. Dooo eeettt. You know you wannnnt toooo.'

Sandro sighed, and then begrudgingly texted a mushy but truthful: 'Miss having you around already, Crazy Pants.'

'Don't worry. Just get _I'll Stand By You_ stuck in your head. Then it's like I'm there.'

He smirked. 'Except you can't sing like Carrie Underwood.'

'Carrie-?! Newb, that song is by _The Pretenders_. Your family is too young! Pfeh! Okay, how about _Ain't No Mountain High Enough?_ '

'There we go, that's even older and I could totally imagine you shrieking those lyrics off-key into a cheap karaoke mic.'

'~Aaiinnt no riiivverr wiiide enouuughh to keep me from gettin ta yooou, babe!~'

Sandro laughed but then heard the front door open. 'Gotta go.' He tagged on a heart emoticon without thinking, sent, paused, and then glared at the icon. _Oh well_. This friendship was already all-the-way sappy. Might as well embrace it, and enjoy that return-heart she sent.

He closed out of the app, pocketed the phone, and then exited the room and approached to greet his mother and give her that hug she expected of him. _Oh?_ "Didn't sleep well?" he asked, leaning over slightly to peer at the dark circles under her eyes.

Mother gave a little laugh and pat his shoulder, and he proffered his shoulder to lean on as she removed her shoes. "Don't worry," she soothed. "It's a just _relief_ to be home. Donnie, have you made any coffee?"

"Black as charcoal," Purple Turtle drawled sympathetically.

Sandro rather wished his mother _would_ talk about work to him now and then; He felt old enough to successfully commiserate, and didn't feel like he knew much about her.

His thoughts flat-lined, because the gigantic thundercloud which passed behind him was so charged with wrathful energy that even the brush of Raphael's forearm against his shell made all his skin prickle warily. Sandro straightened, but deliberately did not turn around. He slowly bit down on his own tongue, and wondered how no one else seemed to notice. That was _dynamite_ walking through the house, but if Sandro could just avoid arguing with him for a few hours, Raphael would eventually defuse.

Easier said than done, when the first thing which came to Sandro's mind was to not-so-nicely inquire, 'Who spit in your bean curd, old lizard?' An urgent surge of conscience begged him not to get in a fight with Raphael, not again, not _now_. Not when he'd promised Donnie to start taking responsibility for things, not with Wildcard yet to be explained, not when he damn well _knew_ he'd blurt something vicious his father didn't really deserve, and get pummeled for it in a way _he_ didn't really deserve. He could try to clamp down and stay silent, but past experience told him Raphael might taunt him. And Raphael baited _hard_.

 _Take control. Think. Come on. Do something. If you want help, you need to ask._

Heart-rate elevated with adrenaline, Sandro glanced slowly towards the dojo and ran his tongue thoughtfully over the lower ridge of his beak. _What if you got Raphael to head to the exercise room instead of the dojo? He might calm down on his own. Think up an excuse to postpone practice for a few hours._ Sandro wasn't going to boldface turn down lessons with his father, but Mikey was gaming and Mom and Donatello were too busy colluding with one another to— _Wait!_

"Mom?" he asked as he followed her to the kitchen table and the distribution of smoky black coffee. "Can I play with your hair?"

At least four people stared at him. _Oh boy._ His mother probably knew his hugs were a little stiff these days; and when was the last time he'd volunteered to even _sit_ with her, much less 'hang-out' with or touch her, or anything else? Also, did boys play with hair? Probably no more than they played with makeup. Donatello started grinning into his coffee, though. _Well don't give up._

"You look overworked," Sandro fumbled. "Scalp and neck massages are supposed to reduce stress." His mother gave a rare and delighted smile, and he immediately felt like a much better son than he actually was. He hurried forward to scoop up her hair and find the tight lines of her trapezius muscles as they hugged too tightly to her spine. Standing somewhere off to the side, Sandro guiltily _felt_ Raphael waiting for him. But, whether the catalyst for his departure was restless boredom or genuine approval of Sandro's actions, Red Turtle did eventually did head off alone to maul a punching bag.

Sandro breathed out a long, soundless sigh. _Sorry._

He found a knotted trigger point up against the base of mom's scalp, right at the top vertebrae, and gently worried a thumb into it. She leaned back into his hands with a quiet, "Oof. When did you get good at this?"

"I am sorry I never offered before," Sandro smiled as he spoke, guilt fading away to something lighter, perhaps pride. It was nice to be helpful this way, and to have her attention over something harmless. A hand against the top of his shell made him glance to see Leo passing him by. It was just the briefest of touches, but Sandro had a feeling it meant someone had been watching out for him after all, and that sort of made all the difference.

* * *

"I'll put down the rear seat, and then we can probably fit everything," Wildcard said as she rounded the car.

"How did we manage to buy more than we could fit in the trunk?" Joker exclaimed in dismay.

"It all started when we decided we needed a second cart. When did we get a _car_ , by the way?"

"Wednesday," her father answered as he leaned in over their parcels to help her push the rear seat down. "Had it in the shop till this morning. You like it? Couldn't find one in green, sadly."

"Can't ever go wrong with a Hyundai hatchback," Wild agreed, "they're the humble workhorse of the automobile domain. A steadier and more dependable hunk of metal is hard to find. Besides, I'm presently quite fond of orange."

"Get's thirty-two miles to the gallon!" Joker also agreed. "And has excellent all-around crash test ratings!"

"You're such a _mom_ , dad," she giggled, waving for him to pass her the shelves they'd bought so she could help settle the large box into the rear seat. He mimed a curtsy before doing so. "Say, you know how I told you Sandro and I have the same birthday? Well I've been trying to come up with a gift idea, but it's not like he _needs_ anything. And I can't look like I have much money or people will get suspicious."

"Well there goes my suggestion of a military-grade turtle-shaped submarine." He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on their new television and then passed her another box. "What if you _made_ something?"

" _Made_ something?" The suggestion made her panic a bit. "Oh no _no_ , you're the artsy one, not me! I don't want my gift to _suck_!"

"I never said I wouldn't help you on the execution of it, and we might be able to find something you have a natural affinity for. Drawing and painting are out of the question; you have no interest in either, and your grasp of color-theory is shoddy to nill. But you have a very difficult time making mistake, and will not accidentally break or chip what you are working on, so what if you tried a reductive art? Something like _sculpture_. Something you can do with a trusty pocketknife, perhaps?"

Wildcard racked her mind. "Whittling?" she suddenly realized.

"Ah, _whittling_ ," the Joker purred. "That does suit a ' _grizzled'_ person such as yourself. Why! We might have to spray the whole house in the scents of lumberjack and bear grease just to accommodate you."

Her face lit up. "I need practice materials!"

"A bar of soap will suffice till you have an idea, and then you'll need a few chunks of soft wood." He tapped the top of the car. "We need to hit _Hobby Lobby_ before it closes for the night. Let's hurry!"

"Sure! We can—dad, I understand the coasters, napkin holder, peppermint tea, scented candles, and freshly cut vegetables packaged with ranch dressing, but why on God's Green Earth did we buy a woman's fifty-six color variety makeup palette?"

Joker opened his mouth to reply, paused, reflected on the matter, and then looked at her in a baffled and begrudged respect for the subject of the discussion.

" _Target._ "

* * *

"Gourmet or Garbage this evening?" Joker asked as he turned about and leaned his arm against the headrest to watch the back window while he pulled out of the _Hobby Lobby_ parking lot. They'd managed to get in and out just before closing hour with only a single bag of purchases. Which said something, given that the store was filled with odds-and-ends and art-supplies to the ceiling.

"Hmm," Wildcard contemplated as she turned over the basswood lumps and carving knives she'd been given to work with. "I pick... Garbage!"

"McDonald's it is. Gonna play it straight to you, I have had a hankering for french fries and a hot fudge sunday for _forever_ , and after that splurge back at the-store-that-shall-not-be-named, I feel like I deserve some junk food to make me feel better."

"That's our family," she snickered. "We're all across the board, up, down, side to side! We can buy Ikea or Pier One Imports; can make a bomb with world-class technology reverse-engineered from Iron Man's smart missile, or from a gas can and some fertilizer we picked up at Walmart; can enjoy fine wine tasting over goat cheese and bruschetta, or eat our ninety-nine cent hamburgers and still be happy. We can do anything with anything."

He grinned and reached over to ruffle her hair, and then leaned over to turn on the radio. He to surfed for some (older) classic rock (when had the 90's and 00s became 'classic,' exactly?) when a radio host suddenly said "Next up is Kelly Clarkson's _Because of You_." Joker paused with his hand over the scan button. Then he sank back and grabbed the stick shift instead.

"Dad. Change the channel," his daughter ordered, and when he didn't immediately obey, she leaned over to do it herself. He waved her away from the control. " _Dad_ ," she protested. "This song is about a person with psychological and trust issues as a result of an emotionally unstable parent."

"This song came out the year you were born. Came on once when you were seven. I must have played it every week day after that for two years," he mused aloud. "Haven't heard it in awhile."

"What!? Why!? Oh come _on_ , this is what speaks to you? The titular character is in a bad relationship and you're single," Wild complained. "Honestly the entire chorus reminds me more of the turtle who can't leave the sewers because the boogeymen will get him. 'Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk.' 'Because of you I learned how to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt.'"

 _~I was so young, you should have known better than to lean on me.~_

His daughter stomped her feet and whined irritably: "If this is your way of apologizing, why is making _me_ feel bad?!"

 _~Because of you I don't know how to let anyone else in! Because of you I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty! Because of you I am afraid.~_

"Fuck it now I need a sunday too," she wiped at her face. "And don't you _dare_ tell me off for cursing!"

* * *

Wildcard heard a soft whine as the two-stage mine outside her window armed itself. She raised a brow. But then, when nothing exploded, she decided to tuck away her whittled soap to prop up the window and have a look around at whatever might have alerted the mine.

"I nearly lost a few toes...!" whispered a familiar voice from overhead, and she looked up in surprise to find where a gigantic reptilian ninja was dangling effortlessly from the shingles, one split-toed boot propped against the siding. "And I only _have_ a few!"

"How do you know where I live? Did you _stalk_ me home?" she reproached.

"I like to be a plesant surprise!" he snickered mischievously, with a smile no one could really stay mad with.

She gave a heavy, tolerant sigh better befitting Donatello, and then casually twisted the mine a few degrees to disarm it and leaned back. Mikey swung himself nimbly over to step onto the sill. Despite being a seven-foot turtle, he perched in the four-foot sill quite casually, and without making it look odd or cramped at all.

"Is your whole house booby-trapped?" he wondered aloud.

"Well, _robbers_ keep trying to break in. What's up?"

"I need your help with a prank," the turtle explained, apparently totally okay with the amount of explosives in Wildcard's lfie. "Can I come in?"

"Say no more!" She hurriedly made space. "After all its not like a thirty-year-old-man in a thirteen-year-old girl's bedroom at midnight should raise warning flags."

She'd meant it as a joke, but he recoiled sharply in a way that meant the words had hit him hard. Poor Mikey. Her foresight made sure she didn't have to lose a moment's sleep worrying about his intentions, but he wasn't a cute little teenager anymore, and that left him at an impasse with the world's expectations for normality. It was something of a grand, horrible, cosmic joke that his circle of close friends should be so small; he had way too much love to give.

"Oh no," she protested, hurrying back up to the window and reaching up to the cringing ninja to clasp her hands around his. "No, no, no. I'm not scared of _you_. I was making fun of a world that doesn't handle exceptions to rules very well, and likes to whitewash everyone with cynicism."

"I would never do something like that," Mikey said weakly, evading eye-contact. "I'mma stop calling you 'Tiny Chick,' and I'll leave right away if I'm being creepy."

"You're a _saint_ ," she chastised sternly, "and the catholic church is just too stuffed-up to canonize one for practical jokes. Plus! If you don't flirt with me, I'm going to have to flirt with Donatello, and that's going to get really funny really fast for everyone but Donatello. Don't you know it's your duty as his brother to protect him from psychological molestation by munchkin-sized Incarnations of Pure and Unadulterated Evil?"

Bright blue eyes framed by an orange mask and ruddy freckles turned back to her, and the sunlight which dawned behind them immediately made the world feel better.

Wildcard thought of Michelangelo's confession that there was this bitter, mean-tempered 'Pizza Lady' who 'hated him,' and whose only contact with him was trading a few barbed sentences with him every time she delivered boxes of Gino's Pizza. _That woman has got no idea what kind of angel is absolutely smitten with her. And if she's super lucky, he won't give up on her._

"There, that's much better." She kissed her fingers and tapped his cheek. "The whole world gets sad when you get sad," she turned away with a fling of her arms as she looked about for any knives to clean up. "I honestly expect the sky to cloud over and rain in sympathy."

"D'awww!" A grin cracked open, letting more light through. "That's so _sweeettt_..." He looked about her room as she quickly finished dumping her clothing into her hamper. "You have awesome taste in superheroes, yo," he remarked with regards to her posters.

"Ooh. The best," she agreed, and then clambered under her bed. He peered down at where she'd disappeared to, but she turn around and pushed out a cardboard box ahead of herself. "Feast your eyes on the best of the best!"

A disbelieving pause followed. Then Mikey crouched and reached into the box to find the thick stack of magazines and folded posters. "Naawww wayyyy... Really? How many do you _have_?!"

"They and some Spiderman comics were like the only things I brought from Gotham!" Wild announced as she slithered back out from under the bed and beamed at her treasures. "But I put them away when I met Sandro, cause I deliberately anti-fan-girled myself so I could be a real friend, you know? I never asked any questions, 'till the day I asked him if his dad was Raphael cause that was the _one name_ he never mentioned." She reached down to dig out the oldest issue. "But! I hear you are the cartoonist and co-writer! Is this true? Because, if so, you are going to have to supply me with my first non-weapons-themed autograph, Hamato-san." She extended a black felt pen to him.

Mikey looked to the pen, then the stack of posters and comics, and then squinted at her. "Okay but first, this is very important: Which turtle was your _favorite_?"

"I'm not sure I know, but I can definitely tell you which one was my _spirit animal_ ," Wild snickered. "Now sign my comic and tell me about this prank of yours, Sunshine. I sense we've work to do!"

"Right on," he agreed, taking the marker. "I think I bought everything the prank needs. It's a good thing you left your kit with Donatello! Hemming together an extra-large dress without Raph's help was harder."

"Do pardon the Cheshire grin I'm wearing, but I _think_ I just figured out what the plan is and its blown my mind."

* * *

"I was wondering if we had a visitor," commented a Joker from where he leaned into her door frame.

Wildcard turned her ear-to-ear grin up to him. His scars were still hidden. A thoroughly peach turtle in bright honey-colored curls was sitting on her bed, and she was cupping his chin as she applied blush. "Hey dad! Wanna help!?"

Joker looked from a manic Wildcard to a deer-in-headlights Michelangelo. "I am sorely tempted to say yes simply because we appear to be dressing a gigantic mutant ninja in drag, and opportunities like that are few and far between; But go ahead and tell me the objective of this exercise regardless."

"He's gotta pull off a salsa dress!" she gushed, and then grabbed up the makeup palette they'd accidentally purchased. "I totally found a use for this, how awesome is that!? Although I'm kinda scared I'm going to overdo the eye-shadow!" She waggled her arms (and the palette), "And the pranking power is directly related to how fantastically and over-the-top beautiful he is!"

"We're _pranking_ someone? Say no more. He's gonna need to veil that beak to pull it off. Save the eye-shadow for last, I'm going to look for some orange fabric. And maybe some gold-sequin trim, hmm." He headed downstairs.

Michelangelo leaned near Wildcard. "Has your dad met Sandro?" he whispered loudly.

"Yeah but like don't tell Donnie," Wildcard whispered back just the same. "He'll kill me."

Mikey lifted up a hand to pinky-swear, although it took a moment for Wildcard to figure out what it was given that Mikey only had a thumb and two fingers. She wondered if Raphael's preference for the Sai was a direct result of being able to flip people the birdy with them. She accepted the pinky-swear.

Time to throw their hands in the air and roll with it.


	39. Self Confidence and Inner Peace

[Author's Note] So I got to thinkin' about Mikey's dress...

* * *

"There are so many _ruffles_!" Wildcard squealed fighting back waves of orange satin fabric as she tried to get the whole dress out of Mikey's dufflebag without drowning in it. The dress, it could be said, was winning.

"I _know_...!" a turtle gushed, echoing her excitement.

"Mikey! Mikey, where did you buy this!?" She stretched her arms up from beneath and decided she had clearly found her new camping tent. It was a fantastic mix of red and yellow oranges.

"You'd be _amazed_ how easy is it is to find women's quadruple large dresses in surplus on a short notice," Mikey snickered through his beak. "The wambo-sized opaque tights with fishnet were much harder!" Wildcard fell over laughing. "Hey, I _commit_ to pranks!"

"Tch." Her father reached out and pulled the turtle's chin back. "Stay _put_. You sit still almost as well as _she_ does. You want to look like a Caribbean dancer or a lot lizard, mn?"

" _Dad_!" Wildcard admonished as she poked her head out from under a dress. "There are _children_ present. Gosh." She looked to Mikey apologetically. "It's slang for a hooker at trucking stops. Don't worry, we're not _racist_ in this family and would never call you a 'lizard.'"

Michelangelo almost threw his head back laughing, but one shuttered share from her father make him reign himself bashfully in as he tried his bestest not to move. "She's funny," he squeaked apologetically.

"She's a feather-brained, ostentatious nightmare with a weakness for puns and a penchant for illegal mischief, all baked into the appearance of a harmless sugar cookie," her father drawled, and then glanced back as he heard a timer go off. "Squirt, mind getting the quiche out of the oven?"

"FOOD!" she leaped out from her pool of dress, scrambled for the door, and vaulted clear off the railing of her balcony—as was of course only natural—and down to the first floor.

"Children are predictable. You, however..." Michelangelo was taken aback to feel a long jackknife leaned against his throat. The tip pushed his chin up, and turned his head back to where hazel eyes gleamed dangerously. " _You_ followed an adolescent girl home uninvited, and slipped into her bedroom."

"It was just to ask for help, sir," Michelangelo said, levity gone. "I'm _sorry_. I've been Sandro's surrogate brother, and I don't think I ever grew used to—"

"—acting your age? I noticed; _Never change_ , it's charming. Merely pay attention to what I have to say." And Mikey did, because this was the last thing he'd expect to hear while being so _casually_ threatened at knife-point. "I haven't seen my child lower her guard since she was six. She won't bond with anyone, not teachers, coaches, kids; _no one_ has ever gotten under her 'shell' but your nephew. And perhaps, by proxy now, _you_. Your family is the reason I am getting to see her behave like a child again, and for that I owe you all a steep debt I cannot easily repay." Mikey's eyes widened. "But the next time you come to this house, older-brother-complex or not, you will use the front door. And you will be _careful_ with her, particularly when leading her out or bringing her home, because I am a mite unhinged and have an _ugly_ protective streak that should best stay buried." The knife was withdrawn, for the most part. "Did you more-or-less get all of that?"

Michelangelo—who by intuition alone suspected he'd just been given trust a lot rarer than Wildcard's—nodded submissively.

Wildcard's father pulled back, squinted at him thoughtfully, and then let the knife snap shut. "It's very hard to stay mad with that face, by the way."

Gawhaha? Back to being an ageless child again. "I have three older brothers and a lot a lot of practice, sir!"

"It shows." The older man smirked and then stood slowly and dusted his pant legs off. "If you would like some quiche, you are welcome to join us for dinner."

Orange Turtle still felt slightly dizzy from how fast that had all turned about. Still, _food._ Food was always a thing. "What is _quiche_...?"

Her father looked back at him from the door with an almost Donatello-ish expression before at last reducing all description to: "It has cheese in it."

* * *

"This is _extremely good_!" Joker grabbed the tumble of yellow curls just a second before it could end up in a mug of coffee. Mikey paused open-mouthed over a half-devoured deep-dish cheese and bacon pastry, and blinked up at him. "Um. Thank you for cooking?" Joker shook his head, gathered up the hair, and tied it into a loose knot behind the turtle to keep it temporarily out of the way. "Thank you..."

"Seriously a marriage of cook-books between our families needs to happen," Wildcard agreed, cutting another piece of food off for herself and licking crumbs from her lips. "All for _my_ benefit, naturally. Sunshine here is half the family chef, Da!"

"The fun half!" Michelangelo cheerily agreed.

"I'll write the recipe down," sighed the room's most mature person—and that _was_ saying something—as he went to fetch paper and pencil.

Wildcard took a stolen orange bandanna-mask and donned it. "As if the turtle whose eyebrows are totally on fleek, and whose mane of ringlets is in terrible danger of ending up in his food needed to specify _which_ half was the fun half?"

"I was trying to be careful," Mikey mourned, for clearly it hadn't mattered. "Wait, how did you even get that from me?"

The little bandit beamed up at him with joy that could drown lesser beings. "I'm a thief!" she announced proudly.

"She's a thief," agreed her father over the scratch of a pencil. "Someone taught her how to filch arcade tokens once. Heavens only know what they were thinking. It's been an arms race ever since." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Here you go, 'fun half.'" He passed the paper over the table.

The turtle quickly set down his food to draw out his phone. "Thank you, sir!"

Wildcard leaned over Mikey's arm to observe as he faithfully transcribed the recipe, probably more just to memorize it than with any need to reference it again (if the wildly eclectic and disorganized titles of his other notes were any indication). She giggled. "I see the Samsung Galaxy Mega and it's giant six-inch screen of enormousness has found its niche with your family. And you're _still_ messing up every other word!"

"Donnie tells me he is now fluent in Autocorrect," Orange Turtle agreed with a snicker, and both he and her were either oblivious to their generation-gap-defying-nearness or else found it normal. _Or alternatively_ , Wild had caught on to Joker's duplicitous motive in sending her downstairs, and was now signaling a sort of aggressive protectiveness by keeping physically close to Sandro's uncle. She needn't have worried; Joker was a fair judge of character. "S'my fault, yo, I'm lazy!"

"How does Donnie _type_?" Wildcard demanded, reaching out for another portion of food.

"Surprisingly well!" Michelangelo was equally baffled, and glanced at her with a big, full-body-and-facial-expression shrug. "You'd think he'd build a gigantified three-fingered keyboard—right?—but nope! Guess he just wants to be sharp for whenever he has to use someone else's setup? Dunno!"

* * *

It was actually quite fortunate that Wild's father (Mr. _Hamilton_ , right?) had agreed to help, because the dress needed some emergency tailoring around the back to fit properly. Mikey stood, holding ruffles out of the way as the pit crew helped him. Wild took the opportunity to stand up on their table to help put in false eyelashes for him.

"I'm confused about the dress: what's with the hard insets?" she finally asked, as Mikey rapidly blinked through the second eyelash application. "Why is it so complicated?"

"Well they want it to look normal, squirt," the older man saved Mikey from explaining, and paused to take a pin from his mouth and pegged orange satin together. "Like the shell is just a shield worn over normal clothing, I suppose? But nothing has a back, so the side fabric would roll forward. It has to be anchored snug against the underside of the shell to make the illusion work."

"What your dad said," Mikey agreed. "I totally just copy Raph's designs!" Wild giggled diabolically. "Hey, yo, he wanted to pull off that awesome biker look with a black leather jacket. If you think a dress is hard to make look normal, _well_!"

"Let it not be said that I doubt for Raphael's masculinity, even in light of his tailoring skills," Wildcard snickered as she picked up a tube of eyeliner. "I called my dad in to help us with _eye shadow_. Though I do suppose this explains why Sandro owns like fourteen shirts and you have _one_ you don't even like. Hey! Mikey? Is your shell a different shape than Sandro's?" she suddenly frowned.

"You can tell that?" It was kinda flattering, being a turtle and all, when humans noticed things about shells.

"Sandro has a smaller waist," Wildcard was sure. "Like, shell-included. Right? It's why that coat looks so good on him."

"Yo, nice eyes! Yeah, our four shells are like ovals; Sandro's is like a kite shield. If ya ask me his totally 'fits' better but, hey, I _love being a turtle_ , so meh!"

"Man it's too bad we don't have more time. I bet we could pretty it up a bit for you, paint it with nail polish or something."

Before Michelangelo could reflect on how amazing that sounded, his phone hummed with an incoming message and he broke into a grin. Sandro had texted: 'Where are you?'

Mikey took a snapshot of Wildcard-stylin-it-up-in-orange with that mask on, and then tagged on, 'Stealing ur girlfriend.'

And _—_ _Ha!—_ his phone immediately started ringing. But before he could swipe to pick up, Wildcard shouted a frantic, " _Don't_! He'll give himself away!" Michelangelo looked to her in confusion. "He's gonna _shout_. Loudly," she predicted so sagaciously that it dawned on Mikey she had come to know Sandro better than he did. He nodded as she fetched out her own phone.

"Put dat fucker on the phone _now_ ," was the first thing Sandro said to her, voice audible even at a distance. "He's _dead_ , I'mma rip 'im a new cloaca."

Wildcard's grin could be heard almost before she began speaking: " _You're_ just jealous I was the first one to see him in sexy fishnet stockings."

" _What_?"

"He's in a dress, Sandro. And wearing six-inch steel-reinforced heels he's already nearly sprained an ankle in. Can you get Raphael and Leo into the same room and preferably close to starting an argument about something stupid in exactly sixty minutes?"

A long pause. "Yes, I absolutely _can_ ," Sandro agreed with a blithe about-face.

"Knew I could count on you, bro!" Wildcard cooed. "And San? ~IIiiiiii will aaallwayyy loooveee youuUUUuuuu!~"

"Oh God. Hanging up now." Pause. "But nice to hear from you." Click.

"Man, your singing needs work, too," Michelangelo informed her.

"I think that fairly classified as yodeling," her father offered dryly.

"It was bad, yo," Orange Turtle summarized.

" _Very_ bad."

"Hey guess who has more than three fingers!" Wildcard exclaimed and extended both middle ones for Mikey's benefit. Her dad called her out on it, and Mikey gasped 'that's racist!'

* * *

"Did you threaten that sweet summer child earlier?" Wildcard whispered to her father as a ninja-in-heels made his way down their porch steps.

"It would have been strange if I hadn't," Joker remarked. "Besides, he's over twice your age, twice my weight, patrols an entire city, fights off alien invasions, and babysits you. If he couldn't hold his own against one knife and a few barbed comments, I'd be disappointed."

"Dad," she growled. "Off Limits."

"Mn-hmm. And so's your bedroom."

She glared at her father, but a teenaged emotional constipation kept her from trying to articulate her feelings further. Besides, what would she say? Filial love would never permit her to tell _Joker_ that this person had stood in as a surrogate 'adult' for her while her own had been unstable, or that now Mikey really _meant_ something to her. It was like the orange turtle wasn't just _Sandro's_ uncle anymore. In fact, she'd bet money she knew why Mikey had visited her without thinking much about it: she'd been accidentally shelved under 'family' in _his_ mind—but Wildcard actually wanted to _stay_ there and not get ousted out to 'friend of nephew!'

She _wanted_ more family. Inexplicably. _Desperately_.

A stumble and crack signified several hundred pounds of teetering bone, muscle, and jokes had nearly taken out the railing of their porch staircase. Wildcard brightened up again and hurried out after him, and Joker followed to make sure their house would survive. Poor Mikey was gaining a greater appreciation for a certain reporter in his family, doubtless.

* * *

"I feel like I need a walking stick until the training wheels are off," Michelangelo called as Wildcard joined him.

"I think you you need to wear your boots until you are safely in a sewer," she countered.

"Whoa, no way I need practice!" he asserted firmly. "I need to dance into the room like _un gitano caliente_! Besides, in this lighting and with my stuff slung over my shell, I almost pass for normal."

Wild laughed and looked back to her father with a grin. "Can I walk this poor creature home safely and make sure he doesn't end up getting raped in a dark alleyway?"

"Wow would _they_ get a surprise," Mikey imagined, before imagination took him much too far. "Although now I'm totally covering myself with my tail. Eek."

Her father acquiesced. "Just be back in under an hour."

Now that she'd terrified him, Michelangelo was sort of glad to have her along for the walk. Especially since he was pretty sure she was just joking and knew how to get home safely. Silence stretched between them as they left the home. Mikey could have picked a nearby manhole to disappear _quickly_ , but he felt both at ease in this partial disguise and maybe in need of some time to digest his thoughts; and the night air was nice. Plus he thought maybe he ought to, like, _say_ something to Wild. About all that. About her dad. About Sandro. About trust issues. About _something_.

He could pretty much write the lecture Leo would give him if Blue Leader had known anything _at all_ about this visit. Starting with 'What made you think that was a good idea?' and ending with a frantic cascade of 'What do you mean someone managed to pull a knife on you? And you _didn't notice_? You missed the body language? The draw? _What_?'

Delicate things didn't need speculation or crazy stories. I _was outmaneuvered by a dad for a very dad-ly reason._ Mikey wasn't Donnie, and didn't need to 'know' to really, like, _know_.

"C'mon Angel-Cakes, you can do this!" Wildcard called to him as he lagged. "Work that strut!"

He nearly fell over. "Angel-Cakes!?" _Wow_ _the nostalgia...!_

"Well I looked for a drag queen name but you don't look like a Michelle, so I decided to work off the 'Angelo,'" Wild explained matter-of-factly as he caught up with her.

"Oh, _hey_ , I totally need a new nickname for _you,_ " he recalled.

Wildcard laughed. "Boy do I know it! Threw off all your normal speaking patterns having nothing cutesy to call me or my dad! But you know, I didn't _mind_ 'Le Tiny Chick.'"

"Not even about the height thing?" he teased, grinning down at her.

She glowered reproachfully. "I'm gonna end up 'Smalls' aren't I?"

"Of the 'Yer killin me Smalls' variety? I was thinking something more _Victorian,_ " he cooed.

"Lewis Carroll!" She knew immediately where he'd jumped! "You can't call me _Alice_ , that's just another name. Besides, he might have been totally innocent but that's not the rap pop-culture has given him recently. We mustn't besmirch your reputation." She patted his arm as if he were delicate.

"Right, and 'White Rabbit' doesn't roll off the tongue. Neverland instead of Wonderland?"

"Tinkerbell is a derogatory name boxing coaches call people to rile them up, not a good nickname for a real girl!" Wild nevertheless hovered closer to him. Was she hedging for a hug? Oh, she was trying to make sure nothing was _broken_.

"Well you can't be Wendy, that doesn't make any sense," Mikey scoffed. "Chip?"

"What, Mrs. Pott's son? That's Belle with an 'e,' not 'bell' like the sort that tinkers. Tinkles? It's still sorta cute. Senorita!"

"Naw, people use that in too many pick-up lines, same problem as Le Tiny Chick." Okay he couldn't help it:"~Tale as old as timmmeee...~"

"Tune as old as sonng!~" Ha! Disney made her actually _try_ to sing.

"Bittersweet and strange!~"

"Finding you can change!~" and she stayed for the harmony: "~Beauty and the Beeasssttt!~"

"How are we still on the same wavelength!?" Mikey demanded of this zany little _orange_ creature beside himself. "Even Donnie can't follow me this far!" (Orange? What did one get when one mixed orange and purple? Black? Brown? He had a feeling Wildcard was secretly _sharp_ like Donnie was, like _he_ wasn't.)

"One hundred _billion_ dollars!" Wildcard fixed him with too much Dr. Evil to handle.

"And I shall call her: _Mini Me_!" Michelangelo cackled, ruffling her hair in agreement; but at the same time trying to let her know nothing was wrong. "I can't believe your dad calls you 'squirt' by the way! That's _so—_ "

"Squirtle?" she cooed.

Mikey threw up his hands. "Pokemon!"

"Okay this is getting out of control, I strongly suspect this conversation doesn't even any sense," Wild cackled. "Wait! I know something I do that you don't do! I watch _anime_!"

"Full Metal Alchemist!" Michelangelo hit her with.

"Who are you calling 'small'!?" she quoted ferociously.

"~Who lives in a Pineapple under the sea?!~"

"Sponge-Bob Square-Pants!"

"No, this is Patrick."

"So this duck walks up to the lemonade stand-"

Michelangelo snapped his fingers, stopped walking, and looked down at her with wide eyes. "'Mini-Meme,'" he realized. "That's it! _Mini-Meme_!"

Wildcard gasped with an actual, "Gasp! You can even slur it all together. _Minimeme!_ There's so many ms, ns, and vowels in _just one pun_...! I'm not sure it can contain them all!"

"That's it! That's your new name! I have named you. I'm the one who names everything, as you may know, and I—"

"—you, Angel-Cakes?—"

"—I, Angel-Cakes (and through me, vicariously, Hamato-Michelangelo) bestow upon thee the name of _Minimeme_!"

Wild then decided this was a good time to throw down a glitter bomb and she bowed with a tremendous flourish amid all the drifting confetti. Her performance earned her a high-pitched whistle, applause, and a 10 out of 10. It was _green_ glitter, after all, and coincidences were everything.

"Hey Mikey?" she asked a few minutes later, when he was shifting a manhole cover aside. He looked to her. "About my dad..."

"S'okay Mini," he said. "I'm not dumb. I get the jist of why you don't talk details about him even though you love him to pieces." She drew back in surprise. He winked. "Though if you ever wanna talk about why you got so upset on Tuesday... I know you can totally tell Sandro anything." He hiked up the dress and tied it temporarily off at his hip to keep it from dragging on anything, and spent a moment to figure out how to operate a ladder in these bizarre shoes. "Okay! I got this. Wish me luck?"

Wild leaned over him, and kissed his forehead, and he melted under the affection for a moment of complete zen. She was the cutest thing ever, and April and Raphael would totally see that in the end, and see why Sandro needed her. They would. Because separating Mini-Mikey from Mini-Raphie was _spiritually wrong_ and the universe (plus Michelangelo) wouldn't let it happen. "Good luck, Angel-Cakes," she wished him. "Knock em dead." _Ha_! He saluted, and descended to go throw one fantastic prank.

* * *

Sandro had never _intentionally_ tried to work up his family members before, and it put him in a bit of a pickle to figure out how to do it without putting himself at the center of the spectacle. Obviously he didn't want to waltz in the living room, yell 'Hey Dad, Leo's way more badass than you!' and watch the entire house explode. His mom wouldn't be any help either, firstly because Sandro had no idea how to banter with her, and secondly because he needed to get them riled up about something juvenile. He didn't even know if his mother _had_ a juvenile side. And while Sandro knew Leonardo quite well, and knew the Eldest could be riled up so long as Raphael was around, the truth was he'd never paid enough attention as to _why_.

But he asked himself what Wild and Mikey would do, and then the answer hit him.

So when he waltzed into the living room and glared at both his father and uncle, he knew exactly what to say: "It has recently come to my attention that _everyone in this house_ can dance, beat-box, and sing but me. I have two questions. One: How the shell did this happen!? Why is Raphael and Mr. Jones drunkenly singing _Joy to the World_ last Christmas the largest sample size I have? And Two: Whose _fault_ is this?"

'Whose fault is this?' turned out to be magical words, and the fact that Sandro managed to start a two-way shouting war between Leo and Raphael over who was the better dancer was so fantastic that Sandro almost felt like putting 3D glasses on and leaning back with some popcorn like _someone_ surely would have. It was made all the better by the fact that his mother didn't immediately come up and fawn over or apologize to him for any reason, and instead just sat in her chair in a splendid face-palm that said she was probably secretly enjoying how stupid this was.

Sandro kept his eyes on Donnatello, and saw the exact moment Donnie got a text. Purple Turtle dropped his goggles down over his eyes, activated the video recording function. Sandro grabbed out his own phone. The front door opened.

"Yooo hooo!" squealed a delighted falsetto into a room of boisterous turtle roars. "What is this? Wait, are you boys seriously fighting about who dances better?"

Raphael snarled "Not _now_ , Mikey!" but then furrowed his brow; for Leo's face had slackened and his jaw had drooped nigh to his chest. Raphael hesitated and then turned around. His posture snapped ram-rod straight and his eyes widened to dinner plates.

Michelangelo stood in their atrium in a wide but pigeon-toed stance, which was clearly designed to show off the slit on the left hand side of his dress, standing out in provocative fishnet all the way up to the hip. Flame orange ruffles spiraled up his body and across what must have required a full-padding brassiere to pull off. The skin of his face and arms was the same color as April's: pale and human. He had arched brows, dark black eyelashes, winged eyeliner framing peacock green and golden eye shadow, both ears, and a mane of honey-colored curls in tight bunches all the way down to the mid-bicep. With a gold-trimmed veil over the lower half of his face, the _only_ things left to give away his species, much less his identity, were the shapes of his hands and the edges of his largely undecorated shell.

Mom, who had finally un-facepalmed to discover what could possibly have caused such a silence, lifted her head. Her shoulders fell and her eyes widened, and the look on her face was so dumbstruck it deserved pictures of its own.

"Raphael, Raphael, Raphael," Michelangelo trilled in cute-sy falsetto, sauntering into the living room at a strut which, in those heels, looked positively super-model-worthy. He now stood taller than both of his elder brothers—as tall as Donatello—and he leaned over Raphael in a way that made Raphael lean backwards. "~Obv-i-ous-ly~ the best dancer is... _moi!_ "

Raphael glanced back slightly as if looking for backup, but _nope._

"Or do you want to challenge me!?" Michelangelo took his moment of distraction to pounce upon him and Raphael _squeaked_ as Michelangelo bowled him clear over. But Mikey _caught_ Raphael at the shell and hand, which ended up with both brothers in a compromising salsa dance pose—with Mikey in the 'masculine' role and employing full use of that slit to successfully remain upright. Far too much fishnet was beheld. "Because I've come ready for a _dance-off!_ "

Raphael gaped up at him, but the feeling of ruffled satin spilled all over his thigh must have been enough to shock him back to his senses, because he finally pulled a fist back to beat that smile off Mikey's face. Though Mikey simply dropped him on his shell with a crack, and hurried delightedly past as Raphael grabbed for his legs.

"Hey Leo!" Mikey trilled, bumping his hip into Blue Turtle's provocatively. "Am I pretty?!" Leo turned only his head to look at him, and blinked twice. " _Am I_ _!?_ "

"MIKEY!" Raphael roared as he shoved himself up from the floor. "AHM GONNA KILL YA!"

"You are very beautiful, Mikey," Leo complimented tactfully.

"D'awww!" Mikey squealed, and threw his arms around his older brother to Leo's feeble 'nnnphf,' and that was when Donatello finally lost all composure and crumpled against the back of the couch, howling with laughter. Glaring ferociously at Donnie held Raphael back for a moment, but it also revealed this was _absolutely_ a prank and _not_ Mikey 'coming out' to them or anything more delicate.

"HOLD HIS ARMS!" Red Turtle bellowed.

"For what, being beautiful too close to you?" Leo asked, trying to resign himself to being snuggled by Overenthusiastic Flamboyant Orange, and too-late realizing Raphael was going to kill both of them.

"Wait!" April leaped out of her chair, and Raphael nearly fell over again trying not to crush her. "Wait, wait, wait, _how is this possible_!?" she demanded, detaching Michelangelo from Leonardo and pulling him down so she could have a look. "Mikey! This is _amazing_!"

"Makeup and a wig!" Mikey cooed delightedly, picking her up and twirling her about. "These heels are killing me, April! How can you walk in these things all day!? Am I really pretty like Leo says!?"

"Oh sweet _Jesus_ Mikey, you are _gorgeous_! Let me _see_ you! How did you do the ears!?"

"Eeeee! I'm pretty, I'm pretty, I'm pretty!" bounced an orange turttle.

Raphael sat back, hands raised in exasperated claws as he struggled with the desire to hit someone. He couldn't hit Mikey, because Mikey was holding April, so he turned and slugged Leo across the face. Leo was so dazed that this actually worked, and then Red and Blue went tumbling across the floor in a brawl. Donatello shouted, "Not in the Living Room! I just _fixed_ that television!" which was utterly ineffectual, so Michelangelo added, "I got this, Donnie! I'll just kiss them!" which caused both turtles to freeze and gaze up at him in horror, Leo still with one fist raised, Raphael mid-block.

Mikey gave both eldest brothers a thumbs up and a wink, and then he turned and sauntered past Donatello. He lifted a hand, and Donatello gave him one hell of a hi-three as he passed. "Oh!" Mikey spun around. "By the way, I'm totally 'Angel-Cakes' for the evening, got it?"

"FOR THE _EVENING_!?"

Mom and Donatello took one look at each other, and then both exploded in sobs of laughter. Sandro—grinning like a fiend at his little sister's secret handiwork—rushed after Michelangelo to-to... to _protect_ him from Raphael or something, because Wildcard and Mikey had just done something _fantastic_ , Sandro knew well how long it took to don _half_ that stuff, and if Mikey wanted to strut around in full get-up all evening pretending to be a princess for no reason at all, then dammit Mikey _would_.


	40. Winding Down the Weekend

Wildcard came home within her allotted time frame and hurriedly joined her pensive father upon their new couch; he put an arm around her and chafed her shoulder reassuringly. She swallowed back insecurities , but then they bubbled out in a rush: "What if we mess up? If they get suspicious? If I blurt the wrong thing? Or if they just don't want me around their kid cause I'm _crazy_ and—!"

"—Hold your horses, squirt. None of that is going to happen. The truth's too weird, you're too sweet, and it's not like we're dangerous to them in the first place."

"You threatened him! Sunshine isn't half the ditz he seems to be, _dad_ , he's the kind of person who could solve a Rubik's Cube on accident; and he's got a brother who is so resourceful he could give the Professor from Gilligan's Island a run for his money. Meanwhile I haven't even _met_ Leonardo, who is supposedly _the best ninja,_ when all of them are already so stealthy that they could follow me in my own shadow! And then on top of everything his mom is a seasoned reporter who specifically likes to investigate—!"

"Okay, okay, okay, come here, _shhhh_ ," Joker bundled her into a hug and rocked her, and she dissolved into a pudding of shudders. "You are feeling overwhelmed right now, but things'll turn out just _ducky_ , you'll see. I know how much this means to you; but you've got what it takes, and I'm right here backing you up."

"But Sandro figured you out. And if _he_ could do it, then—!"

"You _spoon-fed_ Sandro that revelation, squirt. You specifically _defined_ your relationship with him as an honest one. And," Joker tapped his own face, "he saw the tell-tale smile. I'll be wearing makeup round the clock from now on, in case we have any more 'surprise visits' from well-meaning fools."

She heaved a tremendous sigh, latched both arms about his waist, and squeezed herself into his side. He rubbed her scalp through the locks of her now-messy braid. "I f-feel ridiculous _,_ " she warbled feebly. "W-why is this making me so _emotional_?"

Her father chuckled knowingly, but said: "If this _didn't_ , what _would_?"

* * *

Raphael had finally started grinning at the absurdity of it all; Possibly at the exact moment 'Angel-Cakes' ran into a mirror and totally stopped to check himself out. Ha! Well, pranks were one-off things, but this was sure going in the record books. Or so Mikey assumed, but then once the excitement died down Donatello came over to sit before him and have a good, long look at the makeup job.

"Holy Toledo. That is positively uncanny," Purple Turtle marveled, still wearing a big grin that reached his eyes. "How long did it take?"

"Over a solid hour," Mikey admitted, "and yo Donnie, you don't even _know,_ there is just so much _to_ it."

Donnie was surprised Mikey had sat still that long, and Mikey wanted to honor their makeup artist's keen eye for naturalism, but they had to share the jist of these things with brow raises and not let the cat out of the bag. Tehe, well he'd only sat 'still' because someone had been talking to him. Besides, it had been interesting! He wasn't a toddler!

"April's demanded a full list of all the brands you used," Donnie confided.

"It's cause it's nothing's run or rubbed off my hands, right?" Mikey grinned, for that probably said zounds about lil Minimeme's proficiency and research levels.

"It does seem unexpectedly _durable_." Donatello leaned back with arms crossed and one hand draped thoughtfully over his chin and mouth. Mikey recognized that look.

"Whoa, bro, that's your 'Mikey just inspired me' face. Does that mean you want to be a brunette!?"

Donatello was too deep in Thinker-Mode for blushing, and instead his eyes gleamed with the potency of all the neat ideas he was fitting together. "I wasn't necessarily thinking about _us_ ," he explained. "And 'hours' is too long a time to spend on any practical costume. But this is the second time I've seen this magic at work, and the verisimilitude to human likeness is solid. Sandro's still short enough to blend into a crowd, and will be for at least another five years or so. I _wonder_ if some better, easier-to-don disguise might make it possible for April to take him out-of-doors now and then."

Mikey perked up. "Raphie might approve, if it's good enough." Raphael had put a lot of effort into designing Sandro's coat so that it hid the shape of his shell, and Mikey had empathized. Donnie and Leo still felt it _sometimes_ , but Mike and Raph definitely felt it more keenly: That occasional dream of being normal and being able to walk around freely outside. "Hey um," something else had occurred to him. "You'll help me get it all off, right? The makeup. It's nearly dawn."

Donnie grinned, clearly tempted to say 'no' just to get him to work for it, but then nodded. "Was my prank too. Besides, can't have you making a scene and forgetting yourself, _Loudmouth_." Mikey beamed.

* * *

"Sandro?" his mother asked with laptop-in-hand as everyone was winding down for bed. "Do you know Mikey's password by any chance?"

Leonardo came alert and turned around. "Stealing into anyone's private things is underhanded."

"Did you try 'password?'" Raphael drawled as he flicked through TV stations, sounding tired but not quite ready to sleep.

"Won't work. Donnie polices him hard about security," Sandro supplied with a yawn. He headed towards his room for some shut-eye, even as he absolutely knew Mikey's laptop password was presently _2!ChickenWithMayo!2_. "Also, what uncle Leo said. Privacy and stuff."

"April," Leo insisted. "Please. Not under my roof." Raphael shot him a huffy look at that genitive pronoun ('my') but didn't argue, not when he didn't even live there most of the week. Sandro shook his head at their perplexing dynamic, but a realization hit him like a lightning bolt just as he reached for his doorknob: _If Mikey's laptop and phone are synchronized, pictures of Wild will be on it._ He paused and looked slowly back at everyone, trying not to give away his alarm.

His mother was squinting at Leonardo as if uncertain whether he was serious, but then sat back with her eyes widening appreciatively. "Well _darn_ , sorry Leo," she chuckled bashfully as she closed the laptop and placed it on the kitchen table for Mikey to find. "Honey, we need a less jaded lifestyle; I forgot the part where I can't commit ninja espionage against own family. "

Leonardo nodded gratefully. Sandro breathed easier, but his mother words put him to thinking: Was breaking into other peoples' computers _part_ of her job? It might be. He knew she had a degree in programming, and that she'd uncovered some very big stories. Donatello had once compared her favorably with heroes in the golden age of journalism, telling Sandro her work hedged closer to that of a freelance detective than a reporter.

"Well," April decided, "I guess I'll have to pry it out of Mikey with my feminine wiles the old fashioned way."

Blue Turtle turned wry. "Now _that_ doesn't sound difficult."

"Woman!" a Red Turtle interrupted, sitting forward on the couch to glare at her. "Excuse me! Ahm sittin' _right here!_ " Mother burst out laughing. "Let's have 'feminine wiles prying' be another thin' ah don't have to see outside of the workin' week!"

Wow. Sandro was getting to see them talk about _their lives_ for once. (Lives he wasn't much a part of.) The detached novelty he felt was potent enough that, when April rounded the couch to crane over Raphael and kiss him, Sandro was more curious than disgusted. He stared more than anyone his age probably _ought_ to have stared at kissing parents; and he wondered at the intense way the two of them _looked_ at each other—quite suddenly—when he couldn't even remember them doting much. (Or was that a result of them using the weekend to hang with the rest of the family instead of each other?)

And then Sandro observed something that ought to have occurred to him earlier: turtles _couldn't_ kiss. They could _be_ kissed of course, but they had beaks instead of lips and beaks did not pucker particularly well. Remembering Wildcard and that smooch she'd planted right on his face shook Sandro back to his senses; and he turned and pushed his way into his room. He closed the door quietly, and leaned against it for a moment, trying to understand what sort of emotion had just rushed over him. Then he hurried up to sit on his bed, and hugged his knees to himself as he took out his phone. He swiped it on, and found the picture of Wildcard in that orange bandanna, sticking her tongue out to the side and holding up a peace-sign.

He took a deep, slow breath, cradling the phone in both hands. A few tears beaded, but he had no idea why. He wiped at them, and sniffed. He transferred this photo into one of his encrypted folders and eradicated all other traces of it. Come to think of it, he had some damning text-message histories to erase! But as he opened up Wildcard's contact (Still labeled 'Free Pizza') and prepared to delete everything, he spied their last messages to one another: His accidental heart emoticon, and her replying one.

Tears pattered on the touchscreen glass. Something hurt, but the story wasn't lining up as to _what_. Or how to fix it. If his little sister had been there, hugging her would have somehow alleviated this _pressure_. But in Wildcard's absence, a dwarf crocodile climbed up beside him, and Sandro smiled fondly. Lady Smiles-A-Lot was as loving and faithful a pet as any dog had ever been. He turned off his phone with the text messages still intact and gathered her up into a hug; and he kept quiet as he cried so as not to alarm anyone on the outside about things they wouldn't understand and which he couldn't really describe anyway.

* * *

Leonardo watched his nephew's door with concern, having spied a hasty exit that looked more frantic than embarrassed. _Hmn_. He turned and fetched Michelangelo's laptop, and returned it to the relative safety of the younger brothers' room. Then he prayed for guidance from Splinter that evening, and sleep did not come easily.

But he was not the only one who had noticed Sandro's abrupt distress. And after April had turned in for the night, Raphael turned off the television and eased the door silently open.

Wedged in one corner of the bed and still wrapped around that croc of his, Sandro looked like he'd fallen asleep while seated. Red Turtle watched, reflected, and then quietly stepped in and past the bed to lean over Spike's aquarium. Even after all these years, the little guy still came out of his log house to greet him like he knew _exactly_ who he was and was genuinely happy he'd stopped by. Of course, Raphael _did_ have half a banana with him as an gift, and the tortoise assaulted it like the world's tiniest and most enthusiastic dinosaur. Raphael rubbed a thumb over his brow ridges and shell. The aquarium was spotless.

Spike, unfortunately, couldn't tell Raphael what was up. Neither could Smiles.

Red Turtle turned slowly to look at the headboard. He let out a deep breath through his nose, and then came up beside his son and carefully, _carefully_ pulled the comforters and sheets out from under his legs. Sandro didn't stir. Raphael pulled the blankets up over top of him. Whatever was eatin Sandro, it had been going on for over a year; or maybe even longer and just recently worsened. His palm found the shape of the boy's cheek and his thumb brushed gently over the temple; but then he remembered himself and quickly withdrew his hand so as not to wake him by accident.

Felt like yesterday the kid had only been fourteen pounds, shell and all; raising hell for what'd seemed like hours, and rousin' him out of an ocean of lethargy to come over an investigate, 'cause Donatello had finally burnt out and was sleepin through it... and no one had known if April would ever be wakin up again at all... and somebody had needed to _do_ something. Still yesterday when he'd picked a red-faced and soggy-eyed baby up and looked at 'im for the very first time and realized _he'd made this,_ and that the person who ought to have been 'doing something' was _him_.

Maybe he was thinkin' of that 'cause he oughttav' been doin somethin _now_ , and just didn't know what.

* * *

[Author's Note] Turtle shells, man. They ain't light. And they also ain't conveniently shaped for delivery...


	41. Twins

Wildcard sat with her block of basswood in hand as she patiently stripped line after line, piece after piece, between the graphite lines she'd drawn on it. Her phone sat in front of her, amidst a scattering of twenty-odd imperfect soap effigies. She was repeatedly playing videos of the carving tutorial she'd been following; but had been working for so long that she seemed to have entered a state of zen.

Now and then she'd pause to turn her block around and around and to place some more marks on it with her pencil. She stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth as she worked, and he found it queerly adorable to see her so engrossed in creativity.

"Hey," Joker called, knocking on her door frame. "White or Black?"

She blinked rapidly, knife paused half-way through a fresh chip of wood. "For what?"

"I'm getting your birthday presents together but realized I can only finish one of the two costumes before the week is out. You want the white one first or the black one?"

"Maybe... surprise me!" Her face lit up thoughtfully. "In fact! Harvey Dent it."

"Ooh-hoo, we're using Twoface as a verb now? _Ow_."

"Do you have any scraps?" She sat forward and put her basswood to the side. "Pieces of that super awesome silk stuff?"

"Sure. What for?"

"How do you _cut_ it if it's knife proof? Can you show me?"

* * *

 _The first week of deceiving my family has elapsed,_ Donatello observed with gloomy contemplation. _Thus begins Week Two._ He was wondering at how Mikey had suckered him into writing this plan. It was like buyer's remorse. Planner's remorse? _Mikey remorse._

"You look grim," Leonardo mentioned as he readied to leave on patrol. "Any reason why?"

 _Oh, I let a mildly deranged girl into our home to play with our nephew, didn't tell anyone about it, and didn't do anything useful with that time which would at least justify such a tremendous deception._ "It's Sandro," Donatello admitted. "I can't help but feel anxious that time is passing and we still haven't made any progress addressing his problems"

"What makes you think that?"

"Have _you_ spoken to him?" Donatello doubted it since Leonardo had already 'delegated' this burden onto him.

Leo scarcely glanced at him. "Raphael came home in a temper; but Sandro smoothly evaded fighting with him, was genial towards everyone, and even spent time with April. If these are not signs of progress, what would be?"

Donatello paused, and then guiltily recalled why he'd needed Mikey to point out the _right_ path instead of the most logical one: Sandro was not an engine to be repaired, and bolstering his morale had clearly helped. To say nothing of the insights Donatello had made while watching the two children play. _'The insides were in Technicolor.'_

"I... suppose that's true," Donatello admitted, and then added, "Thank you." _Even if his behavior's just the tip of an iceberg. A symptom of a deeper problem, a problem we might have been making worse for years by only focusing on behavior._

"Of course." As much emotion as cut cardboard. Leonardo lingered a moment longer. For a crazy moment, Donatello thought he almost seemed _expectant_ , but then he departed without another word, and Purple Turtle couldn't help shooting a glare after him.

 _Oblivious, as usual._ Being mad at someone for failing to notice things one had deliberately hidden or refused to talk about—even when asked—was stupid. But anger balmed and belied emotions closer to _abandonment;_ And for yet another year, Donnie got to put off admitting that living with Leo felt like sharing the house with a ghost, not with a tangible person who could be leaned upon for support... Or that he and Mikey had long ago run out of ideas for how to get their big brother back.

 _These thoughts aren't helping anything._ Donatello tilted his head back and cracked his neck and tried to shake the strain out of his shoulders. Perhaps it would help if he admitted Sandro wasn't the only one of them with problems, and that She-Casey fit right in. He rattled his head to clear it, and then scooped up a stack of pancakes and provided it for Sandro, who could be heard approaching from the dojo.

After a minute or two, when no scrape of cutlery ensued, Donatello turned around and wondered where his usually ravenous nephew had gotten to. He peeked out of the kitchen. Sandro could be found brooming the atrium floor and straightening everyone's shoes. Donatello raised a brow until realization struck and his heart broke.

 _He's waiting at the door for her. Like a puppy._

"Hey," Purple called, quickly going to him. The boy who twisted about to greet him with broom clutched close looked more fearful he'd done something wrong than properly excited. Donatello placed a hand on each of his shoulders. "Everything is okay. Mikey's out getting her right now."

Copper eyes stared meekly up at him, round beneath nervously furrowed brows. _'Brains need to steep in ideas. Like tea.'_

"Come on," Donatello coaxed. "Come eat.

* * *

"Sandro!" A ball of energetic hooblah catapulted across their foyer and skid to a halt just before she'd have crashed headlong into their table. "I climbed no tall buildings!" she cheered, throwing her arms in the air with a celebratory toss of confetti.

He'd already gotten up out of his chair, and he heaved her off the ground in a hug. "Hello, Loudmouth."

Donatello looked at his confetti-dusted floor, and then leaned near Michelangelo to ask, "What do you think the odds are she realizes she will be cleaning that?" Mikey snickered.

"Are we having pancakes again!?" she demanded, kicking excitedly. "Put me down, put me down, there's food! I'll bite your fingers off to get to it, arr-rawwrr-rarr!"

Sandro laughed and dropped her unceremoniously into a chair, and retook his own. "I think you might need to ask more politely than—" But Wild had already stolen his plate and fork and was eating _his_ pancakes. "Hey!"

Whatever taunt she gave him was muffled by pancakes, but probably amounted to 'You snooze you loose!'

Sandro grabbed the edge of his plate and dragged it back slower than one might have imagined by pure strength. Wildcard squinted and then twirled out of her chair, slipped under his arm, and plopped herself in his lap; and since she had the fork, she was the only one who got to eat.

So naturally the boy grabbed her under the knees to hoist her up bridal style, and leaped to his feet. He kicked his chair back, sauntered near the couch despite her squeals of protest, and then bodily flung her a good five feet over the back of it. He turned away and dusted off his hands. But Wild hit the cushions, and then the ground; she redirected, and then leaped off the back of the couch in an impressive tiger pounce, landing on him fast and hard enough that the two of them hit the floor.

Mikey walked past the ensuing brawl wearing a big grin. "Food's getting cold!" he called over it, as Donatello stood there with a stack of fresh pancakes and a dismayed expression, visibly willing to give everyone whatever quantity of food they required.

"Oh no! Truce! I'll get your food and you can have what I don't eat of mine!"

"DAT'S NA A TRUCE YA CRAZY NITWIT!"

"Say! I _missed_ you."

"Uh-huh." A juvenile turtle propped himself up out of the grapple, and gave his miniature human a one-armed hug that prevented her from prematurely escaping. "Ya still don't get any a my food."

"N'awww!" Foreheads touched briefly. "Then point me to a broom! I heard something about cleaning, so perhaps I could earn my flapjacks."

Sandro boosted her in the correct direction and then got up and returned to his partially-pilfered pancakes to enjoy the hard-won spoils of war. Donatello's expression asked 'what was that?' and Sandro shrugged as he retook his seat and his fork, because how was one to justify nonsense? "I won."

"Joke's on you," Wildcard trilled as she swept up the confetti, "I have a preference for orange marmalade anyway!" She smiled up at Donatello. "Hello! Thank you for cooking. Sorry for being loud and messy, I can fix the latter but truthfully my volume controls are probably irreparably broken." She relieved a pat on the head from Purple Turtle and immediately swelled with pride, and Sandro nearly choked on his food laughing.

* * *

Wild ate her pancakes with much decorum this time, perhaps to compensate for her earlier behavior. Sandro finished first, and went to clean off the cookware. He picked up the marmalade from beside her, and removed the butter knife sticking out of it before returning it to the refrigerator. When she was done she sat back in her seat and patted her belly.

"That was _delish_ ," she sighed joyfully, kicking her legs in enjoyment of the over-sized furniture.

"Oh! Donnie, I wanna bake a quiche for lunch!" Mikey recalled as he tossed his phone to his brother. Donnie had no problem catching it; everyone in this family had five-star reflexes. "Do we have everything?"

"Well _I've_ decided I need camouflage," Wildcard told the room, as Sandro came up to stare pointedly down at her dirty plate and try to hint that she should wash it herself. "A disguise, of sorts, to make me less noticeable!"

Donatello looked at her over his glasses. "You?"

"Yes," she agreed as she pulled out a piece of white silk. It looked nondescript until she pulled it over her head and revealed it to be a ninja mask, cut bandanna-styled just exactly like Michelangelo's (or Raphael's) but with a tiger strip of black across the left eye. "Did it work? Am I conceal'ed?"

Mikey lit up like sunshine. Donatello shuttered his eyes at her, but then unexpectedly grinned. " _Well_ , now you look more like a turtle than Sandro does," he drawled, and his teasing tone suggested that he-who-wore-no-mask had perplexed and amused his older relatives.

Sandro stared at her with widening eyes, and cocked his head to the side. Then he looked down and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Wildcard turned a toothy grin up to him, and tapped his arm to get his attention. She lifted her empty hands and showed the empty palms to him, and then clapped them together and produced matching black silk.

Sandro looked to it as if _spooked_ by the item rather than being impressed by the magic trick. But then he took it quickly, and lifted it up to his face. It was black with white over the right eye. A confident smirk settled on the boy's face as he tied off the tails, and for a moment he looked _so_ _much_ like Raphael that Donatello was stunned.

Sandro had refused any sort of mask from about eight years old, when he'd started turning up his nose to mom's yellow and dad's red. 'I don't want one. I don't want a color,' he'd explained to four baffled adults, as if they were all _crazy_ for finding ninja masks to be essential pieces of clothing. And maybe they had been, but color and ninjitsu had always given the brothers a way of expressing their individual identities, and the masks meant a great deal to all of them; which had rendered Sandro's disdain for them strange to everyone but April (who sometimes just didn't get turtle things).

"Happy Almost Birthday, Yin," Wildcard cooed.

"Happy Almost Birthday, Yang," Sandro responded, looking bafflingly smug.

"D'ya like it?"

"Ya know, I think I just might." He nudged her. "C'mon. Clean up after yourself ya slob, let's go to the dojo."

The masking miracle thus performed, the kids washed the rest of the dishes and left two dumbstruck uncles peering curiously after them as they headed for the dojo.

Michelangelo leaned into Donatello. "Um. So, hypothetically, if April puts her foot down and says 'no,' what do we do?"

"Argue," Donatello uttered definitively. "Hard."

Michelangelo gave a tremendous sigh of relief. "Knew you'd see it, eventually."

* * *

Sandro suspected that he was gaining greater mastery of ninjitsu by teaching it. He still wished Leonardo could be there to correct them both. A little wave of dread hit Sandro, as he involuntarily imagined introducing Wild to his family. But maybe there were things to look forward to about it...?

For now, Sandro could solidify her foundation. Not that she was letting him down! She'd gotten to the point where she could hold up her end of a slow-paced spar, and that was one hell of a break-neck learning pace.

Leonardo had been teaching Sandro throws appropriate for a smaller combatant, which felt like a way of indirectly helping him with Raphael. Sandro appreciated. But it was also giving him some very useful things to share with Wildcard, particularly as she would always be shorter than him.

"You should bring your practice _gi_ ," he suggested when he grip slipped on his arm and he waved for her to take a break. "Soaks sweat properly."

"Says the boy wearing polyester and cargo pants," she snickered. "You look hot, too."

It was true. "Perhaps. But I can do _this_." He pulled his shirt off and cast it aside.

"Gasp! You really do have Mikey's moves!" She pretended to swoon, and he snickered as stepped over to grab them some water. "But hey, reminds me to tell you: I think I'm gonna quit Aikido."

"Really?" He frowned. "I thought you liked your sensei."

"Bro, lemme tell ya," she began as he passed her a bottle. "Ms. Jane is like a role model for troubled girls who need to turn their lives around everywhere, she's _the bomb_. But eh I'm getting bored, the schedule's killing me, and I still need time to play in the street like a wild child."

Huh. Not for the first time, Sandro observed that Wildcard didn't form attachments easily. Aikido was going the way of hockey. Maybe that's what made him ask, "And when ninjitsu starts boring you?"

She scoffed with a tender grin. "You'll never bore me, sweet damsel. I'm still going to be pouncing your shell on our eightieth birthday. It's why I consume so much dairy, you see: need strong bones for the long term!"

Oh-ho. _Ow_. So sweet it made his teeth ache. She could be like that, sometimes, _rarely_. He sat down beside her as she drank big gulps of water. "Are you sure?" he prodded, though now he was confident in the answer. "What's so special about me? My family coming straight out of your favorite comic books?"

"Pfft. No. Jane's full name is Mary-Jane Parker, and I have it on good authority she's secretly Spider Man's wife. I liked Spider Man before I could _talk,_ he was on my Kindergarten lunch pail." Sandro straightened in amazement. How did Wild manage to meet so many super people!? "What about you? Gonna get fed-up with me once the novelty of having a squishy human around rubs off?"

Aha! "Maybe," the turtle taunted his petite companion, "But you're my little brother, so I guess I'm stuck with ya."

That cheered her immediately. "D'aww, you _so_ are. Stuck with me, that is, honestly you couldn't get rid of me if you wanted to." She seemed to consider saying something else, but then switched directions. "Here's an idea: Will you help me write a nice farewell letter to Ms. Jane? I can explain I need more time to take care of my poor brother, who has been confined to the house."

He laughed. "Alright, ahm game. By the way, got a bone to pick with ya, Crazy Pants," he leaned over to eye her. "Yer _my_ friend, not Mikey's."

Wildcard found that funny. "I'm so much your friend I've come out the other side and become your brother, which isn't even the appropriately gendered noun for me."

He harumphed in agreement.

"Does that make Mikey my uncle?"

Sandro frowned uncertainly at her. "Ahm not sure."

Her expression grew distant and perhaps a little guilty. "Well you don't have to share him if you don't want to."

He glared. "Maybe ah don't want to share _you_."

"Ah? Well, you're in luck Mr. Possessive," she grinned. "You share me with literally one other person."

His wrinkled his nose. Who? Mikey? Some friend he hadn't met?

"My dad," she reminded him with a roll of her eyes. "I'm not the one with a big family, remember?"

Sandro's eyes widened. " _Oh_." He'd failed to recognize what affect his uncles' acceptance would have on her. She'd so innocently asked to share in his family, and his reaction had been to _get jealous?_ "Hey. Wild. Stop that. You shouldn't smile when I've stung you." She frowned hesitantly. "You can share in seventy-five percent of Mikey. I still get to keep a quarter in reserve; he helped changed my diapers as a child, and that deserves special relationship privileges."

Glee overtook her face, and she threw a hug around Sandro. He hummed, smug to have figured this out, and slipped an arm about her. A thought occurred to him, though, and he furrowed his brow. "Am I possessive?" he asked worriedly, because if so then that was something of a major character flaw.

"Lil bit," she snickered playfully. "But given that Mikey was never told how to get to my house in the first place and then swung by the _bedroom window_ , I'd say your reaction was tamer than my dad's!"

"I'mma have a talk with dat turtle," Sandro growled, still holding her clasped to his collar as he glanced to the hall to make sure no one was eavesdropping. He lowered his voice anyway. "He met ya dad? Did it go badly?"

"Well dad _fed_ him, which is always a good sign. And he didn't dump half a pound of arsenic in the quiche, I checked! He probably threatened poor Sunshine at knife point, but then no one seemed thrown off by the altercation, and Dad almost mothered him a bit afterwards. I guess they didn't much know what to do with each other? Everyone just kinda shrugged and flew by the seat of their pants. To be fair, there was a giant turtle in drag; that probably smoothing things over."

"Seems middle-of-the-road," Sandro observed slowly, for being friends with Wildcard surely highlighted that lots of big things could rest on top of what assumptions people made with limited information.

"Yeah. Hey, San? Don't lecture Mikey." Sandro eyed her, so she explained: "First of all, he's adorable. And second of all, I think Mikey is getting old enough that he almost wants to start his own family. His paternal instinct is firing up, and he isn't used to it."

"Wait. Really?" That sounded strange... and yet somehow plausible.

She nodded. "And on top of all that, he's secretly in love with the Gino's Pizza Delivery Woman, who is super mean to him because she reads the wrong way into everything he says."

"Oh _god_." Sandro reeled. "Wow. You got that all out of him in under a week? I think I need a week just to _digest_ it, I can't even... _Wow_. Well at least I know where we're getting our pizza from for the foreseeable future."

"Heck yeah, we gotta have Mikey's back."

* * *

Sandro stood again after they'd cooled off for a bit, and headed towards the weapon's wall. Wild thought maybe this was best; she'd been seconds from starting to trace the grooves in his naked plastron. She stood up after him and dusted herself off. Then she took in a deep breath. _Maybe it's time I said something. It's been a week. Donnie will, if I don't._

"You wanna do throwing stars for a bit?" He asked as he reached up.

"I was actually thinking maybe we could talk. About your parents?"

Sandro's fingers paused upon a tonfa. The mood in the room went from warm and vivacious to cold and still. The silence seemed to echo hollow for a moment. "I'd rather not."

Oh boy. "Well... I see that! But Donatello and Mikey are helping you hide me from the rest of your family, right? Because something is wrong? I was surprised to hear that!" she tried to explain herself, to explain why she'd just ruined everything. "But I was even more surprised when you didn't say _a word_ to me about it all afterwards, for a while week! I've-I've just never seen you be reticent on anything before. I thought I'd just watch for awhile, to see if I could understand, but..."

He didn't move or say anything, as if she'd pinned him there like a butterfly with a pin.

She leaned back on her heels and curled her toes together. "You know you always make me talk to you when I have a problem."

That, as last, seemed to have a real effect on him. He lowered his hand and leaned into the weapons wall, like he needed its support to steady himself. "I know."

Wildcard watched his shell for a moment, and rubbed at the back of her neck. When he didn't say anything more, she looked around for anything to ground herself, anything to say at all. "When you're upset, I feel it. It rolls off of you in waves, and my skin gets twitchy. Sometimes I imagine I absorb your emotions, and that's why you being so steady—so balanced—calms me down."

Sandro turned from the wall slowly. He looked back at her, feeling adrenaline and panic and tingles in his bones.

"Truth is, after my first visit," she began, and he saw vulnerability surface on her face as she tried to meet him halfway, "I went home to find my dad curled up and rocking himself, in the middle of a house whose interior he'd destroyed from floor to eaves. None of our furniture survived, except the stuff in the bedrooms."

He'd _known_ that furniture in Mikey's picture had looked different. He'd read something awry in her text message about fixing up the house. He'd sensed it days earlier, even, but hadn't been able to peg it down. ( _Too caught up in my own problems._ ) Sandro closed his eyes.

"And it's okay!" she hastily added. "It's always okay afterwards, and he'd never hurt me. And I didn't want to burden you when you're working through your own stuff, but Mikey reminded me if there was something I needed to get off my chest, you'd always understand. And he's right: you get me when I don't get me. Like why am I being forced to dab all this senseless moisture from my mask? Nothing bad happened, and this was a week ago."

Sandro looked up again and quietly and heavily crossed the space between them. He stood before her, close.

"Look," she cleared her throat, "It's just that I feel uniquely qualified to listen to your problems, and that if there was one person you could spill your soul to who wouldn't freak out cause things seem 'wrong,' it would be me, and you ought to know that."

He leaned and touched his forehead to hers. Black and White, Yin and Yang. "I know." He took a deep breath. "I just don't think about it in words, so I don't know what to say. But..." he swallowed, "I'll still talk to you. I won't smile and pretend nothing's wrong."

"I bet I've figured a lot out already," Yang suspected. "Maybe I can be the one to help you with words, for once."

"And I bet I know why you're crying," Yin agreed fondly. "Wanna trade?"


	42. Blowing a Fuse

Wildcard settled in beside before him at the sakura and draped her arms over her knees.

"Okay," Sandro breathed deep. "I know where to start. On Sunday I got absolutely leveled by an intense emotional _fugue_ I'll have a rough time even describing. I sort of know what set me off, but the clues don't add up to how severely it tore chunks out of me. Hell, I think I cried myself to sleep."

"Oh _dear_ ," Wild agreed that sounded serious. "What made it start?"

"My parents kissing," he raised a baffled eyebrow as he looked to her. "I think I _stared_ at them, feeling utterly detached one second at like a pressurized explosive the next. I fled into my room in a cloud of paranoia and started quickly encrypting pictures. I was going to delete our conversation history, but turned weirdly sentimental when I ran into our texts, and... I don't even know how to describe it to you. It was like being under a waterfall, all this _weight_ , with tingling in every limb." _Which sounds incredibly disjointed,_ Sandro thought, and tried to clarify he agreed:"It was like nothing connected right. I couldn't figure out why it was happening."

Wildcard sat back to peer thoughtfully at him. Sandro felt self-conscious. He knew he was describing an irrational and over-the-top reaction to fairly mundane stimuli, but at least he was talking to someone who'd done far crazier. Wild wouldn't judge him."This sounds like a symptom of a bigger problem."

"What about the possibility I'm just immature and moody?" he had to prompt. "A classic hormonal teenager, making a lot out of nothing?"

"Hmn." She weighed the possibility. "No. That sounded like a textbook panic attack. But I can see why you would doubt yourself, it's not like you have anyone down here to compare against or ask for a quick sanity check. Tell me: Do you think you're an anxious person?"

Sandro scoffed. "You'd know."

"Maybe not," Wild suggested as if the possibility intrigued her. "Is there a chance being alone with me changes how you see yourself? That 'tingling in every limb' sounds like adrenaline."

"I-I do feel stress. I get 'upset' and it lingers on me for hours, and I say rude things to everyone. Like, seriously, I can't control it." Which was bad, because wasn't 'being steady' something Wildcard liked about him? Though before guilt could settle in, she suddenly laughed at him. Of course.

"What? That's impossible! The boy who bellows 'Ahm gonna kill ya Wild' at the top of his lungs has temper issues!? Can't be!"

"I don't want to be _angry_!" he spat harshly, and she perked up at the sound of him. He frowned, realizing he hadn't meant to snap at her, and that it was a fairly ironic thing to be snappy about in the first place. "I-I mean..."

"No, no, no," she waved her hands briskly to stop his psychological retreat. "Getting angry about not wanting to get angry explains to me the matter means a lot to you. I already know you don't get along with your dad, and that he raises his voice at you and doesn't say the nicest things. If I add two and two together, should I conclude you fear inheriting dad's anger issues?"

"Why's it gotta be about that!? I can't just be mean and disrespectful towards people! _No one_ can!" he answered incredulously, but Wildcard looked askance at him in a way that suggested she was on to him before he knew he had anything to be 'on' about. He swallowed and sat back to reflect on the suggested explanation. Then he shook his head. "It's more practical than that."

"Can you describe how for me?"

"I _can't_ have a temper. They'd stop taking me seriously, or they'd simply out-yell me, or put me in the Hashi until I calmed down and learned my lesson, or whatever. It-it's not something I can have, anger issues. Except..." he slumped, and looked down at his hands, "except I do, don't I? And it flares up, and then I can't talk to anyone successfully, and I just have to take the first opportunity to get out of the conversation, so I can cool down."

"Wow, is _that_ how you feel?" She was silent a moment, and sounded perplexed. "You know your temper is one of the things I like about you."

Tempers being _likable_ was so much nonsense that it made it difficult for him to look back up at her past the knot of his own brow. " _What_?" he breathed.

"Well I mean along with everything it's attached to. You heat up into this loud, passionate, thunderous, fiery, unbridled, energized state; full of life. It's a huge part of how you play, fighting with me over stealing your food, stinky armpits, and who punched who last." Sandro's eyes widened. "You get this arrogant pugnaciousness, and a sort of swagger, and you turn boisterous, rough-edged, and... I'm going to use the word 'dominant' even though it doesn't exactly work in context, just because you're so much bigger and stronger than me, and will wade right into my personal space to force me to talk to you, or to impress upon me that I've been an idiot, or whatever. It's... it's fine. It's a nice part of you. Goes well with all the other personality attributes, makes a full deck."

No matter how amazingly she phrased that, _it wasn't so;_ it didn't line up with what reality had been for the thirteen years prior to her introduction into his life. He looked away and shook his head, sawing his beak. "You don't understand," was all he managed to say about it, though.

"I don't? I guess I'll try to figure it out otherwise, then," she decided. He frowned and hesitantly looked back to her. She sat with her knees drawn up to her chest. "Maybe back up a couple steps and share something else with me?" Sandro stared at her, fumbling for something, anything to tell her in light of that unexpected yield. "How's your relationship with your mom? Surely she has a gentler touch?"

 _Spit it out!_ "I don't feel like I know her very well. Mom only ever wants to talk about my priorities and school." _There, good job._

"Nothing else? You never ask her about herself?"

"I try but she changes the topic, and when I tell her what I'm doing I always feel like I'm playing Russian Roulette. I know it sounds paranoid but it seems like I'll always say the wrong thing and she'll lecture me; and I kinda hate it, so I sorta avoid her. It's not hard, she doesn't spend much time with me anyway." He cringed at how that had come out. "I-I didn't mean it like that! She just doesn't spend time in the dojo! She clearly loves me. Just, well, I ask Donnie to tell me stories about her, instead."

"Huh." Wild rested her chin on her knees, contemplating him. "I feel like the Sandro I know would be able to hold his own in a simple discussion of priorities. Is this more of that accidental-temper stuff?"

No! "I wasn't mad. I was stressed. I tried to talk to her about the subject, but I just couldn't do it, it was going to snowball into something stupid, and I... I never win anyway." He rubbed his face clear of dampness. "I _can't_ win, and I'll just get angry and make everyone else angry, and plus I understand what she's saying and that she's just worried about me and there's nothing wrong with that, so it's best if I just throttle down and shut up because I'm only going to—"

Wildcard lunged forward, grabbing his hands and startling him. "No," she said, eyes searching his face. "You're not letting yourself _become_ angry. You feel helpless to defend yourself, to express yourself, to control your life; so you control _that feeling_ by directing your anger inward instead of towards the people you love. Finding something wrong with yourself alleviates the stress, gives you a means of impacting your situation—"

"I _can't_ control myself! Haven't you been listening!?" he exploded right in her face. "It just comes out, I get plenty angry! I'm angry now!"

"Well _that_ makes perfect sense! This is a difficult subject—people yell!"

"No with you- _No_ , y-you-you're different."

"How am I different?" she demanded.

"It's like I said before. You-You listen ta me."

"So the only time you only can't control yourself is when people aren't listening to you?" she blurted incredulously. "And then if _they never listen_ you still thing the problem is with yourself? That's honestly what you're telling me?"

That hit him like a stake. Those words were so crystal clear in their implications and yet they didn't _work_ as part of the universe as he had previously experienced it, between these walls, in this place, for so many years. _She's wrong._

"Then clearly it's _your_ _fault_ other people don't listen," she realized aloud as she leaned back from him and released his hands. "Your fault, for not being a good enough son. If only you bent to authority and did everything right, and had whatever personality attributes were arbitrarily requested of you at any given moment, people would want to listen to you. In fact, _why aren't you more like Leo?_ "

Sandro stared through her. _She's... she has to be..._

"Well, _unfortunately_ , you are too mentally robust to cause yourself a multiple-personality disorder," Wildcard mused almost wryly. "So when you repress things _intellectually_ , the real anger bubbles up underneath and wrecks havoc the only place it can hit you— _emotionally_ —to knock the walls down and remind you who you are. Which of course makes it impossible to act perfect. But you're still pretending 'perfect' is possible; Is that what everyone seems to want you to do?"

"I'm angry at them," it dawned on Sandro in somber reverence. The words unleashed a dazed and cloudy giddiness through him, a palpable _lightening of loads._ "I'm mad at everyone." He took in a deep breath and then flopped back against the the dojo carpet and peered vacantly up at the sakura. "I'm even angry with _Mom._ "

"You're not only angry, you were clearly hardcore rationalizing _denial_ ," Wildcard chortled as she leaned over him with a reassuringly affectionate smile. "And I'm not even sure why, yet! But you can be angry at someone and still love them. Moms are people too, I'll have you know. I mean, I _think_ so, if they're anything like Dads." She clambered up beside his head, and he shuddered and propped himself up for just a moment so she could get a leg under him. He laid back into her.

"I need a moment," he mumbled feebly with a pleading tug at her elbow. "I-I need... I need to... digest that. I can't-I can't hear more right now. I can't talk."

"I see that." Her fingers traced down the mid-line of his mask and found the crease of his brow. She rubbed into stressed facial muscles, and pulled the tension gently out. He closed his eyes and fell quiet. "So no exploring _what_ you're so angry about, just yet. Well then! How about I just lavish affection on you, instead?"

"Would you?" His voice cracked.

"Like that's even a question," his tiny human hummed, cupping both hands around his cheeks from behind and rubbing her thumbs along his sinuses and brows. "In what warped version of the universe have you been living where I don't want to put my hands all over you like a complete weirdo for no discernible reason whatsoever?"

Sando couldn't help the absurdly contented smile that overtook his face. He even laughed.

* * *

"We've given them a few hours to settle down," Donatello established aloud, though Mikey wasn't certain which of them he was attempting to reassure. "He was troubled before she came in, but it's past time to sit him down and start talking." Mikey nodded compliantly, but nearly bumped into his brother when Donnie paused at the entrance of the dojo.

Michelangelo peered around him. The kids were beneath the sakura, and Sandro was reclining back with his hands over his face and his head pillowed against the side of Wildcard's lap, talking to her softly. She sat with an arm draped loosely over his shoulder and plastron, tearing fallen apple blossom petals into smaller and smaller pieces as she listened, occasionally nodding or asking questions. Mikey felt Donatello's hand on his arm, urging him backwards. The two of them retreated a few paces down the hallway so as not to be overseen.

"I don't know whether to intrude or not," Donatello rubbed nervously at his jawline. "Are they talking about...?"

"Yo she definitely beat you to the punch," Michelangelo confirmed, for there were only so many topics that could leave Sandro looking that vulnerable. "Is this just as good? Do we win? Yay?"

"I don't know," Donatello admitted worriedly, clearly waffling between two extremes. "On one hand it makes sense that he would be able to confide in her almost _naturally_ , because her lack of preexisting attachments to any family members would allow him to speak freely of his fears and stressors without feeling judged. Talk to her alone may help him put his feelings into words for the very first time, by virtue of being able to _vent_ them in a space where no one is immediately trying to fix things, and by that token he may become better equipped to speak to us in the future. On the other hand, she is only his age and doesn't know his family; her advice may reinforce some wholly incorrect beliefs he's formulated."

Michelangelo thought it was little wonder Donatello suffered from anxiety when he could enumerate every conceivable way a story _might_ end. "Okay, but I kinda trust her not to do that."

Donatello looked at him. "We've only known her a week."

"Bro, that's plenty," Mikey scoffed laughingly. "You can trust a person after five minutes, if the minutes have been crazy enough! Hey, but, maybe crunch probabilities or something? She doesn't complain about people much, and I think she likes us and wants to stick around, so what do you think the odds are she'll rag on Raph and April?"

Donatello took a deep breath, and Mikey felt the probabilities had probably been crunched to Mini-Meme's favor. "Well. Let's talk to them both later," he said. "Sandro's not the only one who needs to prepare for her introduction to Raphael."

"Hola, why focus _Raphael_?" Mikey raised an amused brow. "Bro, you keep calling this girl ' _She-Casey_.' Who's Raphael's best friend in the world?" Donnie blinked at him in sudden realization. "That's right! They're birds of a feather; Loud and violent together; Vigilante justice! But who wants to beat Casey over the head every time they talk? Aside from you, I mean."

"Holy chalupa. You're right," Donnie pinched the bridge of his nose. "April is going to have a _mental checklist_ compiled by which to evaluate any potential 'friend' before letting them within a hundred meters of her son. She sometimes fears _Actual-Casey_ might be a bad influence on Sandro! It is going to take a miraculous feat of social engineering to smuggle this psychotic child past such advanced scrutiny."

"Yeah seriously, Raphael's easy yo. Mini could punch someone one time and Raph would be like 'Yup, good influence. Actually, hold my beer lemme show you how it's done.'"

Donatello gave Michelangelo a laughing look. "He would. (Snerk!) How often does it come to pass that we think _Raphael_ will be the reasonable one? Maybe we need to document this moment? Are you calling her 'Mini' now instead of 'Tiny'?"

"Le Tiny Chick may have erroneously suggested I thought she was hot, which would of course be inappropriate," Mikey informed him sagaciously. "So now she is Mini-Meme."

"Of _course_ she is. April finds _you_ disarming at least, so maybe that gives us something to work with."

"It's cause I'm _irresistible_ , yo!" Mikey flexed, but Donnie put a hand over his face and shoved him away, and that put him immediately to laughing.

* * *

Donatello glanced up as Wildcard came alone into their kitchen and sat, and propped up her head on her hands with her elbows upon the tabletop. Her brows were furrowed thoughtfully. She seemed younger than she was, both because he was used to looking at Sandro and because the furniture was too large for her. Michelangelo had left to join Leonardo on patrol, so that left Donatello alone with the decision of what to do or say. He glanced at her over his coffee and tablet, and chewed on a few words thoughtfully.

Apparently Wildcard made up her mind before he did, because she pushed the chair back and got up again, and she came up beside Donatello. He turned to look down at her, and then stiffened as a little when she reached out to touch him. She only settled her hands on one of his, but he still wasn't entirely accustomed to her. Michelangelo might have found it disarming.

"Can you help me with something?" she asked. "Do you have any security footage that's captured a discussion between Sandro and his mom?"

Donatello frowned at her. "I may," he evaded, displeased with this line of questioning.

"Could you show me?" she requested. "I'm trying to visualize what's going on, but I can't be there to see his body language in person."

Apparently Wildcard had no inclination to keep Donatello out of the loop; She'd jumped straight into talking to him about Sandro as if they were all on the same side. Donatello watched her for a moment, thinking about that footage. "What did he tell you, exactly?"

"Nothing," she smirked. "If he could have _told_ me what was wrong, I wouldn't be hard at work now, would I? I got him to ramble to me instead, and that was like walking through a lava flow of all the emotions in the world." She released his hand and leaned back with an introspective gaze off at nothing. "This is analogous to stumbling in upon a bird to find its wings clipped with no obvious explanation for how it happened."

"What do you mean when you say, 'wings clipped?' " It didn't describe the situation at all, to Donatello's knowledge.

"I've never once seen Sandro fail at a conversation," she explained with a flourish of her hand. "That boy is razor sharp and can detect the slightest thing wrong and fold it open. His vocabulary is _enormous_ and he speaks with such precision I initially thought he had to be _your_ son—no offense intended to any party, you're just the scientist. It's obvious one of his parents gave him a lawyer or storyteller gene: He assembles arguments that flow as smooth as milk, hits every topic in an orderly fashion, drives home his point, and sounds so ardent it's almost like listening to prose. Even when he starts dropping all his g's and goes full Hudson River Delta Accent, he's always in complete control of the art of talking. So this is _weird._ "

Of all the things Donatello might have expected to hear, this was not it. "You find Sandro _eloquent_?" And though he wanted to learn more from this unexpected wellspring, no sooner had Donatello spoken then he realized they were no longer alone, and that Sandro was peeking in at them from the hallway.

"That or at least competent at expressing himself!" the girl laughed. "Yes, I've seen him momentarily get stoppered up when he's angry, flustered, or confused; but seeing him completely unable to articulate himself over a prolonged period of time, agonizing over a thousand moments that _felt so terrible_ he's in tears just talking about them—but where he's struggling hard to even come up with names for those feelings—that's downright painful. It's like seeing him operate sans some crucial part of himself. _Self-confidence?_ No, that's not it. Something _like_ that, though. Am I being too blunt?"

There was nothing to be sorry for. Donatello looked back up to Sandro. "May I show her some security footage of the weekend before last?" he inquired, prompting Wild to turn around. But Sandro nodded immediately, and Donatello stepped out of his chair to wind his way up to the surveillance computer. Wildcard hurried along after him, and Sandro trailed behind by a wide margin.

* * *

"Oh mah gawd!" Wildcard laughed with a glance down the landing at her brother. "Your father really _is_ huge!"

"Told ya." Sandro climbed up beside them, perhaps given strength by her high spirits.

"Boy did ya, it was like the second thing you'd ever said to me. Eee! Is that your mom? Awww, she's so pretty! Although now you look pretty cornered with both of them there."

Donatello made a sound of agreement, and Wildcard noted he really could type quickly just as Mikey had said.

 _\- "Sandro, hon? I'd like to talk to you about the... circumstances of your grounding."_  
 _\- "Okay, mom."_

Well that compliant monotone she'd heard was already out of character for Sandro. But as the conversation began rolling, and as April explained the dangers of going topside and started steering the conversation towards opportunities afforded by a good education, Wildcard frowned in confusion. This sounded almost like a conversation she'd had with her own dad—about being normal, or growing up too fast, or enjoying childhood—but everything was somehow horribly wrong. How?

"She's not letting him speak," the realization dawned as she stepped closer to Donatello to get a better look. "He hasn't finished a sentence." A very inappropriate laugh left her throat, and she covered her mouth to stifle it. "And he's mad about it!"

"I wasn't mad," her turtle corrected moodily.

"Sandro, that's _mad_. That's mad as _hell_. How in god's name did you manage to keep your face tranquil? Jesus, bro, you've made fists so tight you're shaking."

 _\- "Okay, mom," the turtle on-screen submitted in a perfectly docile tone of voice. "You're right. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."_

"That's a bold-faced lie!" Wild sputtered. "Of course you were thinking, you had her number on every single topic she raised!" But on-screen Sandro had already pleaded guilty, and the conversation was done. "Oh come on!" she grumbled, looking to her brother. "What was that? I can even ballpark what you were trying to say! 'Mom, Donatello was married to technology from the moment he first found a sprocket; but I've never felt half so passionately about anything other than being a ninja. Both Mikey's illustration and dad's random hobbies were things they discovered much later on in life than thirteen, so could you please be patient about me developing alternative interests and instead just be proud of my ninja skills?' There, how did I do? Perfectly reasonable response, right?"

Sandro withered slightly as if he felt embarrassed. "I tried. Show a little respect, she's my mother. I didn't want to get in a fight."

Wildcard pouted."You know you're really reluctant to criticize her. Do you think you might have her on a bit of a pedastle?" Sandro frowned and grew introspective. Wild looked back to the screen. "Hmm. Are you saying it would have been worse if—Wait wait wait, don't turn it off!" she interrupted Donatello.

"It's over," Donnie told her sharply, which might have been a hint not to criticize April in front of him.

"No it's not," Wild chastised him regardless. "Haven't you noticed Raphael letting all the air out of the refrigerator? He's been staring since it started, what's up with that?"

Raphael's expression wasn't visible because he was turned away from the camera, but he did indeed linger there until the flash of Mikey hopping across the room (likely to get Donatello) seemed to bring him back to his senses. Instead of shrugging and going back about his business, Raphael headed for Sandro's door, too, and cracked it slightly open. Then he lingered there, clearly hesitant to disturb the occupant. Wildcard's heart welled up with feeling and her eyes widened in surprise.

"He went to check on him," Donnie realized aloud. "He _empathized_."

Their thoughts were interrupted by loud footfalls, and they turned to see Sandro making a hasty retreat from the security footage, every line of his body tense. "Whoa, hey! Sandro!" Wildcard called, jumping the rail to catch up to him.

"Nope." Sandro said.

" _Sandro_!" she demanded an explanation for what had just happened inside that head of his, and caught the edge of his shell with a hand. He was trembling, but he stopped walked and swiveled to look down at her with a livid, haunted sort of _wrath_ in the proud carry of his head. "O-kay, wow." She blinked. "You need to kill a punching bag."

He nodded curtly.

"Well go on! Go, take your time!" she shooed as Donatello descended the landing behind her. "Day's topics have been rough enough on you already!"

Her counterpart glanced at Donatello, stared at her a long moment, and then reached swiftly out to grab hold of her and seize her to his naked plastron. He crushed her to him, to the point where she was off her feet and struggling to breathe. The crook of his neck was warm. His trembles resonated through his bones and carapace, vibrating across her skeleton.

"Oh- _ho_ ," she wheezed at last, because this need to touch her _now_ was the only means he had of communicating something. "I get it. You don't think Raphael _loves_ you, do you? Seeing him display affection—it blew a fuse. It invalidated your memory of being completely alone, as if saying you'd _overreacted_ by feeling so god-awful that night, or even as if you'd _imagined_ and _made-up_ how strained your relationship is. And that's how you get mad, that's what makes you mad, when something tries to invalidate your feelings."

Her brother buried his sharp-beaked face into her shoulder and squeezed _tighter_.

"I get it," she rasped. "No, I get it. That makes sense. That's not crazy. _You're_ not crazy. You just want your parents to _love_ you."

Silence weighed in the room a split second before Sandro's knees gave out and Wildcard kicked up her feet to avoid twisting an ankle on that heavy impact with the floor. Her turtle released her, sort of, pushing her upright but clinging to her arms. Wildcard propped herself up on his shoulders and blinked down at him. The enraged shudders were gone, burnt to a crisp, and he looked utterly exhausted in the aftermath. He peered weakly up at her for a few seconds, and then wordlessly reached around her again—but gently, this time. She squeezed him protectively close; It was harder to envelop _him_ than the other way around, but darn it she managed. He tucked his head beneath her chin and buried his face into her collar, and she oozed heartbroken love all over him.

"I'm _sure_ they do." Something occurred to her and she tried to look behind herself without removing Sandro's roof. The direction she had to look in was more _up_ than _back_ , as it turned out. Had they _estranged_ Donatello? Foresight said otherwise; He just didn't know what to do. "Help me!"

And that was how Wildcard ended up in the middle of a turtle sandwich, which would have left her feeling _incredibly smug_ with herself at any other time.


	43. Bedtime Stories

No sooner had he entered the front door that Leonardo knew some interesting development had occurred, owed primarily to the black mask-tails draped over his nephew's shoulder.

Sandro was at the table with his chin resting atop his forearms. He did not turn in his seat or wave or call out a greeting, and a half-eaten panini sandwich sat beside his elbow. Initially concerned, and more than a little curious, Leonardo came up and brushed the top of his shell. Sandro jumped slightly, as if he'd been too deep in thought to hear the door open, but the expression he turned up to Leonardo was more tranquil than disheartened. So Leo smiled. And reigned back on the ridiculous urge to clasp the boy's face in both hands to better admire him.

"Would you help me make myself some toast and tea?" he inquired of his nephew instead, because he had been mulling over the idea that Sandro might enjoy being relied upon. Perhaps it was time he stop resisting his inability to touch any button or lever in this room without causing an explosion.

Mirth brightened up the boy's face, now accentuated by bold, dark silk and a striking bolt of white. Sandro quickly nodded and rose from his seat to go operate the requisite devices.

Leonardo openly marveled, and slowly sank into his own chair. _He doesn't even remember that he's wearing it, does he?_ In one single evening, something fundamental had changed about the way Sandro viewed such objects: Masks had jumped from being forced, wrong, and unwelcome to being valid tools for expressing one's personal identity– exactly the same as they were for his father and uncles. What could mean so much to him? Heavens knew Sandro had complained _vociferously_ at every other attempt to 'color' him, and to find he'd ultimately stuck by that position was strangely satisfying.

Sandro turned about, so Leo quickly averted his stare; and the boy was so inclined to be helpful that he fetched things Leonardo really ought to have gotten for himself, like a cup, cutlery, the tea bag, margarine, and the jar of marmalade. "Thank you," Blue Turtle acknowledged, a little embarrassed to be taken care of by someone younger than himself, but happy to see Sandro continue on in blissful ignorance anything at all was odd. The boy retook the seat beside him, and poked at that half-eaten panini until Donatello's cooking finesse eventually convinced him to nibble at it again.

Leo glanced fondly over at him. _He's starting to look like his father. I hadn't noticed before._ Perhaps it was truly the mask: Leonardo had few memories of Raphael without one, after all. Well! It would be interesting to see if this continued on into the weekend—

Leonardo paused with the lid twisted off of the marmalade, and peered curiously at the contents. Then he lifted it up and rotated it slowly, thoughtfully, between thumb and forefinger. The jar was a little artisan thing made of heavy glass, resistant against Michelangelo-themed breakage and easy to reuse; the jam within was made from orange zest and juice, and by volume presently filled the jar to about the halfway mark. It sported a few flecks of butter. And neither of these two things would have been strange if anyone in the household consumed marmalade other than Leonardo, who always spread his jam _before_ his butter to prevent such unnecessary cross-contamination, and who knew the jar had been nearly full when last he'd seen it.

But mulling over this problem he was having with Donatello gave way to a fresh insight: _It's a reversed Inyō,_ he realized of the mask. _Half a Yinyang._

The wrong half, too: Yang ought to have been the Male, and Yin the Female. _Ah, but not necessarily, not if gender paled in importance next to some intriguing couplet of character attributes._ Yin and Yang suited almost any context as stand-ins for opposites; Yin might for instance represent The Moon, Shadows, Winter, Caves, Serenity, Death, Water, Lethargy, Supportiveness, or... Passiveness. _Weakness._

Leonardo stiffened and stole an uncertain glance at his nephew. _Is that... is that what you are saying you feel? Regularly? So much as to wear it on your sleeve—or face, as it were—and still fear no one will notice?_ He was not sure what to say to that, and did not want to alarm the boy if he had read too deeply; he would have to meditate upon the matter.

Perhaps just as significant was the likely existence of a second mask.

Leo settled the marmalade down, and dressed his toast.

* * *

The hour was late when Leonardo felt Sandro join his meditation in the dojo. But rather than sit beside him, Sandro sat shell-to-shell and leaned into him. Speaking of new things that reminded him of Raphael! Where had Sandro picked this up? Or had it just occurred to him naturally, the same as it had to his father? The boy's energy buzzed with thoughts that traveled in circles and refused to lay flat.

Leo contemplated the physical contact, the elevated heart-rate, and an aura that radiated doubt, confusion, and moroseness. It seemed Sandro wanted to talk about something important, but he waited for Leo to be ready to speak with him. Touch seemed to settle the boy's nerves, and he did not grow impatient or interrupt.

"Something is bothering you."

The young turtle drew a deep breath and let it out just as slowly, but said nothing. A twinge of wistful bitterness lanced through his energy. Leo lifted his head, alerted to a distressing possibility: Were April and Raphael not the only people Sandro feared speaking to?

"Ought I urge you to speak, or just provide my shell to lean on while you 'recuperate?' I-I am not sure what you need."

Sandro actually laughed, perhaps at his uncertainty. "I went looking through some of my old toys," he explained. "And found an old 'Leo' written on an action figure's boot in permanent marker. Hit me like a jolt, cause I remembered you _did_ used to play with me, once. Like anyone; Like Mikey. Star Wars, Star Heroes, Star Trek—anything with a 'star' in it, apparently. But how old was I then... five?" His voice lowered. "And I was wondering why you stopped."

There was nothing Sandro could have possibly asked him that Hamato Leonardo was _less_ prepared to answer. Leo said nothing, and his silence went on so long that Sandro apparently gave up hope of an answer and instead meandered over to a completely different topic:

"I don't want to be anything other than a ninja, but Mom can see those words coming from a mile away and commandeers the conversation to wax lyrical about every other profession under the sun. I take a lot of pride in my daily lessons, but lately I've been feeling like you hold back with me, like you won't push me or challenge me to the level I can be pushed." Oh wait, but—! "I realize I'm supposed to have fun too, but ninjitsu is part of _how_ I play, and now I know I can't outfight a single Foot soldier. I know I'm still young, but I feel like I'm lagging and I don't know why you won't address it. Is... training me an _obligation_ , do you not want to–?"

Leo broke his defunct meditative pose and twisted about to grasp swiftly at the boy's the boy's shell and interrupt him. "What have I done to make you _doubt_ me?" he asked to the younger turtle's startled expression.

"You-you haven't-! There's nothing, I'm sorry." Sandro quickly turned away, but Leo reached across to fetch the boy's gaze back. Still black with a bolt of white. _Yin_.

"Look at me," Blue Turtle pressed as he turned completely to face his nephew. "You are the one who asked me if I could listen without judgement. Test me. Let me re-earn your trust. Tell me what I have done to wound your confidence so."

"You haven't done anything!" Sandro sounded as if he were begging, as if the words were a request to let him run away to bury this topic in a hole such that its validity might stop tormenting him. But the conversation could not be allowed to end like this, not when a great many things felt so strangely and frantically wrong with their family; not whilst everyone failed to talk to anyone; not when something was wrong between himself and Donatello; not when—apparently—Leo _too_ had contributed to Sandro's unwellness.

"Then tell me what I _haven't_ done," Leonardo implored. " _Please_."

"I...I just... I just-! Wh-why don't I _know_ you?" the little turtle blurted almost frantically, and tears sprung up with frightening gusto. "I spend hours every single day studying under you, and I look up to you, but I don't know seem to actually know anything about you! Why don't I come to you when I've a problem, if you're the calm, reasonable, enlightened one; Why don't I know you like Donatello and Michelangelo; Why are there all these things I _don't know_ about _everyone_ that are fun or important—like the dancing thing; Why are you so distant and unapproachable if everyone seems to remember a time you weren't; Why don't you ever play with me, and why would you hold back on training me if that's the only connection you'll give me!?"

Leonardo leaned back on his heels. He was quiet for a very long time, as warm metallic eyes searched his face in flustered and vulnerable confusion. His answer, when it finally formed into words, was hushed and apologetic: "So that you would stay close to Raphael."

Brows furrowed twice as hard. "What?" Sandro's voice cracked.

"So that I would never—whether by accident or temptation—steal you from him." Leo dropped back to a seat, releasing the boy's shoulders and covering his own face with a hand. "I knew Raphael better than anyone, knew how much being your father meant to him, and knew he did not like this setup and did not want to leave you here. Had I given myself permission to treat you as a son, I would have been the absolute best father I knew how; and I had the time with you that he did not. So I made the decision to distance myself, to ensure you would never imprint on me as a surrogate father figure. I counted this tactic successful, because every weekend the only thing the two of you ever want to do is train with _each other._ "

Sandro staggered to his feet, saying nothing. But rather than argue, lament, or flee, he _loomed_ there with anger pouring off of himself in waves. The older turtle's eyes widened incredulously. A volcanic explosion would not have been strange coming from Raphael, but from _Sandro_? Leo looked up to enraged copper eyes and dazedly wondered if he was about to receive a loud 'FUCK YOU' as would have been typical of his father.

Instead, Sandro's words flowed out in one tremendous, vibrant, astonishing pidgin of personality traits: "Dere are forty-eight bonsai in dis room. _Forty-eight_ , plus da sakura is forty-nine. Ya can keep dat many fuckin' _trees_ alive, and ya still think family love's somethin' _finite,_ what has ta be _conserved_ , instead of bein' like _water_ every goddamn person needs just ta stay alive?"

Leo reeled, horrified.

"I _need_ you. _Donatello_ needs ya. _Everyone_ needs ya. Na ta keep the skies clear of foot patrols, na ta meditate on things till you've rationalized doin' _nothin'_ , but ta be _our family_ to us. And na _despite_ da fact dat some people are missin', but precisely _because_ dey are."

And, with that, Sandro spun and departed the dojo, the world's most well-spoken and reasonable maelstrom.

* * *

Her phone rang as she was getting ready to turn in for the day, and she immediately answered.

Wildcard knew Sandro hadn't been ready for her to leave. He hadn't spoken after the security footage, and she'd sat with him for hours petting the back of his head, neck, shoulder, and shell. Normally Sandro had an 'eww cooties' threshold, or would at least jokingly ask if she'd mistaken him for a dog. This time he'd been so lost in thought that when she'd half-seriously suggested a sleepover, Donatello had actually looked slightly apologetic about saying 'no' instead of alarmed. At least calling her meant he was finally talking, right?

"Need a snuggle buddy?" she whispered wryly into the receiver.

And she received a deadpan: "Yup."

Ha! When was Sandro that impossible-to-fluster? "My testy teenage terrapin sounds grumpy," she drawled, imagining his frustrated pout.

"I love you." Wildcard jumped. "Just thought I actually ought to say so, in a clear and concise manner, at least once; is all," he justified or clarified or _something_. "'Specially since you were really there for me today, and said that thing about us still being friends when we're eighty, which I didn't admit aloud was nauseatingly sweet of you."

Wildcard blinked vacantly. She was woefully bad at being earnest. She needed the framework of a joke or tease or pun, something to take the edge off. "Are we in rebellion against all the strong silent types who are way too mature to have feelings, dearest brother?" she inquired.

"Might be that we are," he grumbled.

"Well I love you too." Pause. "Wait that's how I'm supposed to do it, right? No airplanes spelling it out, no punch line, no strippers in cakes, nor a flash mob of dudes in dinosaur costumes doing Gangnam Style? Just like that? I dunno, it seems underwhelming. Oh my god this level of uncertainty hasn't happened to me since the day I second-guessed myself on how to spell 'who!' Sanity check!"

"Oh my _god_ , nothing which passes through your head could be remotely classified as sane," he groaned, but then hushed. "I shouldn't be talking to you. Uncle Leo is still up, and I-I talked to him..."

"About what?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow. But it's actually okay, because I... _forgive_ him, I guess is the word." He let out a heavy sigh. "Can I just listen to you talk for awhile?"

That was a beautiful thing for someone to ask of her, particularly given how much time usually went into wishing she'd shut up. Perhaps that's how she drew a blank. "What do I say?"

"...Read to me?"

"Er. Would you find it soothing to hear me fumble every word longer than two syllables, rant laterally, and repeatedly cuss out the author?" She'd meant it as a rhetorical thing, but her Yin answered,

"Yeah, it's fine."

"Oh." She looked to her desk, and then sat up and scooted over and reached across it to grab a book. "Uh. Alright, then, um..." Come to think of it, she'd never read aloud to anyone but Sandro. That sort of made it special.

* * *

Leonardo was unbalanced, and he knew it scarcely three steps into his morning exercises. His motions were second-guessed and forced, facing him with the dilemma of whether to power through and go out on patrol anyway (the usual choice), or admit to the desire for a mental holiday. That latter option did not sit well with him, not for a multitude of reasons (and what good was a leader who could not protect his own?) but taking it might possibly prove something to someone. Himself, maybe.

He did not expect Sandro would want to see him after such a tumultuous conversation, and Leo been set to call that morning's training officially canceled. But as he paused to reflect, and his katanas drifted to a neutral position at his side, he heard footsteps and turned to see their young turtle peer into the dojo from the hallway. _Still wearing the mask!_ Sandro bowed in greeting with a tentative, "Sensei."

It took Leonardo an effort of will _not_ to act as if everything was fine. "Good Morning," he called sheepishly.

And that effort was rewarded, because upon consideration of his tone Sandro came up to him to speak privately, with his hands worrying slowly together in front of himself like Leo had only ever seen from Donatello. "Is what you said about my dad true?"

Leo hesitated. "Which part?"

"That he didn't want to leave to New York. That... I meant something to him?"

If _that_ was in question, then Donatello needed to be smacked for not giving Leo some forewarning. Were they not all on the same team? That 'genius' had elected to avoid him the moment he'd realized dinner had already been provided by someone else, making it impossible to debrief on whatever topic had rendered Sandro so silent. "Did something give you the impression that things were otherwise?"

"Aside from how he's _not_ here? You... You've been there; you've heard him. All he cares about is whether I _screw up._ " Fists balled in defiant reproach, all nervousness gone. "Are you going to answer me with a proverb or platitude?"

Leo watched him, feeling inadequate, neglectful, and disarmed. He shook his head and thought back. "The first two months of April's job in New York were grueling. She tried commuting daily, and when that proved dangerous and nerve-wracking for everyone involved, we all took turns watching out for Foot Assassins. Raphael paced for hours in this same place we now stand, agonizing over whether to move in with her or stay behind to raise you until she could return. His eventual decision was that she was the one in danger, and that he only truly trusted himself with her safety. They did not initially expect to be away for more than two years."

Sandro sat back on his heels. This time there was no wrathful anger, just the sight of a mind hard-at-work with fragments of a story it had clearly never been told before. _And who would tell him, if not you? Who here knows Raphael better than you?_

"The last time Casey got your father drunk—this past Forth of July—he ended up sobbing all over my shoulder with regards to how touched he was that you still wanted anything at all to do with him. He always feared you might grow to resent him; He knows he is not the easiest person to get along with. Although... please never tell him I've told you such private things, as he would surely kill me."

"So... he confides in you?" Sandro wondered, posture almost evasive but with a glimmer of old trust surfacing.

Leo took a deep breath. "He confides mostly in April, now."

The young turtle was quiet a moment longer. Then he stepped forward into Leo's personal space and delivered a fast and wholly unexpected hug. It lasted an awkward handful of seconds, in which Leonardo held both katana gingerly out a few inches so as not to accidentally cut him, and otherwise had no idea what to do. Then Sandro released, stepped backwards, and gave a rapid little bow. "May I be excused from lessons for the day?"

"Y-yes." Hadn't he been about to cancel them anyway?

"Thank you, Sensei."

* * *

Donatello finished cooking breakfast before Leonardo was ready to head out for the day, and so left out a plate heaped with eggs, hashed browns, and bacon. The rest of the food he kept covered in tinfoil so it would stay warm.

He went to his lab to bring up an overview for the code bases he was presently managing. For Donatello, Software Engineering was straightforward, idiomatic, and high-paying labor; he spent a few hours gathering requirements and piecing together documentation, and then usually automated everything from bug-finding stress-tests to answering inane streams of client emails. He wasn't above leaning back his chair, cracking his knuckles, and gloating a little, either. Despite how little effort this all took him, he knew he was irreplaceable, and there was a sort of _security_ in that.

Sandro hurried into lab and came up beside him, looking in much better spirits than the day before with a curious and eager expression on his face. _Someone wants a story!_ Donatello could already tell, as he turned in his seat and pulled up a stool. Sandro took it, glanced to his screen, and then unexpectedly asked him: "How did you get your first job?"

Well! That was already down the alley of things he'd been thinking about. "It wasn't easy," Donatello laughed. "When April came up with the scheme for me to take courses online, we were still heavily in debt owed to her own college tuition, and the price of online college for _me_ seemed to be digging the hole even deeper. No one wanted to go back to raiding dumpsters for expired food, at least, not for you. We always did eat a lot of expired Einstein Brothers Bagels and Panera Bread; they both participate in food recovery programs."

Sandro's eyes widened curiously, and Donatello wondered if the subject of money or poverty had ever really come up before.

"Mikey and I both already worked to bring in a little extra money on the side, while April's pay went to paying down loans and affording their tiny New York Apartment. For me this meant working as a customer service tech—horribly abusive job, by the way, and it pays a pittance—and Mikey did costumed entertaining—which was even worse, poor thing." He smirked. "But everyone pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and so eventually I yielded and took the classes. But what chance did I have to prove my skills? My job is easy to do _in absentia_ , and I had the degree, but I could neither network nor attend an interview."

"I see why that was a big gamble," Sandro realized. "What was your lucky break?"

"Your mother. She is as ruthless a negotiator as her husband is a fighter. The client she got me—which was Sears Automotive as I'll never forget—was so impressed by the spec sheets I designed they wanted to hire me on as a project manager. They offered to fly me, offered a visa if I was out of country, but I insisted I couldn't. And you know what? They hired me anyway, so I will always owe them that debt of gratitude, because that was _a lot_ of money at the time. It let me force Mikey to quit Cowabunga Carl."

"Wait, what? Him quitting meant that much to you?"

"He was getting depressed. And the only thing that keeps me plesant and sociable instead of turning into one of those jaded, misanthropic, elite, programmer archetypes is getting hug-tackled out of my chair every now and again because someone wants me to play a video game with him. But Mikey must never be told that. You will swear to secrecy?"

Sandro grinned and crossed his heart. "Anything to keep _Mikey_ from being _depressed_. I can't imagine how awful that must have been. Maybe people ought to pay superheroes," he laughed.

"Like for that whole 'we stopped the Kraang from invading Earth' thing?" Donatello chuckled. "Alas that they do not. It's little wonder our ranks have so many billionaire playboys; they don't have to worry about having enough money for pampers and baby formula while they're deposing evil would-be dictators and fighting off gangster ninja clans." He took a deep breath. "You feeling a little better? After yesterday?"

Sandro nodded. And Donatello didn't ask him anything else, not yet.


	44. Hi! Hai!

By the time on the clock, Mikey was already out fetching Wildcard and would be back shortly. The food Donnie had set out for Leonardo had been eaten, the plate had been washed, and their 'leader' had long ago left for patrol without a word of goodbye to anyone. And that had been the point of going down the hall to his lab, of course, but Donnie scowled all the same at how little he'd been missed. Why wake up so damnably early to feed him at all, then? If all Leo needed was food, then Donnie might as well just program the kitchen appliance to heat up leftovers at the same hour every day. Avoiding his eldest brother was pathetically easy.

He shook his head to disperse these negative thoughts as he went to peel tinfoil back from the rest of the food for Sandro. The boy attacked his plate just as soon as it arrived. Someone's appetite was back! "Sandro?" Donatello broached to the boy's inquisitive glance. "Would you and little She-Casey care to start talking strategy with me today?" The fork paused halfway to a mouth. Sandro thought about the question but then nodded. Donnie smiled. "Alright then!"

And indeed the day looked to be starting on quite a high note, right up until they both heard the distinctive sound of the showers shutting off, and then the sudden disquieting absence of white noise. Donatello went very still, trying to work out how he'd managed to _miss_ that, and decided the only possible explanation was, well, that they were _turtles_ who lived in a _sewer_ , and running water was such an omnipresent thing that they'd learned to tune it out. His gaze slowly met Sandro's, and then the two of them turned warily to the hall. Had Michelangelo failed to launch for the day—?

The Turtle who stepped into the kitchen with a towel about his shoulders was _not_ Orange, and the novelty of finding him home at this hour made Donatello feel entirely justified in the strangled yelp of "What are _you_ doing home!?" which left his mouth.

"I am taking a day off," Leo said, as if such a thing were normal, as if such a thing _had ever happened_. Leonardo was such a creature of habit and so headstrong that Donatello had been hard-pressed to keep Blue Leader grounded even if he'd been badly injured, much less convinced him to remain at home for social reasons. ('We didn't _used to_ go out every day, Leo, and the city survived' had long availed them nothing.)

"What for!?" Donatello still felt quite in need of a tremendous amount of information!

"I have heard that people occasionally take holidays," Leonardo replied matter-of-factly, as he went to pour himself another cup of tea. Donnie wanted to strangle him then and there with his own entrails! Although, Leo did look somewhat... groggy. Gah! Not that grogginess had ever stopped him before! Donatello reached for where he'd left his phone, but found he could not immediately locate it. Had he left it in the lab?

"Why so tense?" Leonardo asked, and Donatello honestly felt _mocked_ despite knowing how little Blue Turtle knew what was going through his head. "Have a seat, tell me about your week."

 _It was fine until whatever the hell this is!_ "Did I have my phone when I came in here?" he asked of Sandro, who blinked at the counter-top and then shook-his head as if he'd also expected it to be there. _Dammit._ "Mikey is out, I'm going to tell him he has no immediate backup."

"Michelangelo is an adult and can handle himself," Leonardo mused aloud with a nonchalance towards safety that would have been nice at a million other junctures but was now a serious problem. "What is the emergency?"

"False assumptions get people killed," Donatello retorted, much sharper than he ought to have been because he was angry out of his mind. "I'll check the lab." Anything to get him away from his brother.

* * *

Sandro almost spoke up to offer his own phone before Donatello's scathing tone of voice startled him into observant silence. He stared down the hall after his uncle, who seemed for all the world like an overheated, foaming pot of noodles with all the water spilling out from under the lid. Arguably the only one who ought to be panicking right now was Sandro.

Leonardo blew softly over his tea as they heard the Lab door shut. Then he murmured a cheerless, "Good Morning to you too, Donnie.'

 _Something's wrong_ , Sandro realized, turning to take-in Leonardo's heavy-lidded expression. _All those passive-aggressive jabs Donnie makes at you... they're not normal, are they? Only I'm too young to know what 'normal' is._ After a moment, feeling unexpected cool and collected, Sandro took his own phone from his pocket and texted Mikey casually over his breakfast. 'Warning, Abort Mission.'

Leo sipped his tea. "I could use your advice, nephew," he interrupted the silence, and startled Sandro into a wide-eyed stare. _What?_ "You know Donatello very well. Do you have any idea why he might be upset with me? Anything he's said? Recent events seem to be worsening things."

Sandro blinked slowly. "He doesn't think you'd notice if he parked a white elephant in the house."

Leonardo leaned his elbows upon the table and considered his mug. "An old adage—about being careful for what one wishes for—comes to mind."

A bolt of dread shot through Sandro. Arguably Leo's comment could have been interpreted innocuously, and Donnie would have dismissed it as nothing, but Sandro had too much respect for Leo and had been interpreting those subtle inflections all his life. He stared at his uncle, waiting, and when blue eyes lifted back up to him the older turtle gave a tired but gentle smile.

"Please trust me," Leo requested of him.

Sandro sat back in his chair, no longer hungry. His phone weighed heavily in his hand, heavier with the contact 'Free Pizza' just under his thumb. He watched Leonardo and then looked down and poked at his remaining eggs. When he heard Donatello's footsteps coming down the hallway, he already knew what he'd hear, but he asked, "Did you find it?" anyway.

"No I used my computer to dial him instead," Donatello said, voice concerned. "He's not picking up and GPS reads as being in the house, so he left his phone behind." _Which is entirely against the rules!_ Sandro could very nearly hear him nag if only he'd been in a nagging mood. "I'll go after him." He grabbed his Bo.

"That," a sleepy Leo stressed without looking up from his tea, "is an overreaction. Michelangelo is fine; the world is not going to fall apart because I've stayed indoors for one–"

"Who the hell are _you,_ and what have you done with my anally retentive brother?" Donatello interrupted at a snarl as he strode towards the door. Now that Sandro knew what repressed anger looked like, was he was startled to realize he could immediately recognize Donatello's out-of-control reactions.

"Sit down," Leo commanded quietly.

Donatello whirled on him. "Or. You'll. What?"

"I don't have to do a thing, and neither do you," Leo answered with a nod towards their security computer. "Michelangelo has already returned home."

* * *

The front door swung open and an excited "Saaannndrrrooo!" filled the room. A white-masked girl sprinted past Donatello, her giant smile and greenish eyes both glinting. Sandro gripped tightly hold of the table, overcome by the sudden, quaking urge to crawl across it to get to her, to grab hold of her, to get her safely behind himself. The impulse was _absurd_ , but his heartbeat elevated hard and fast in his chest.

Wild skid to a halt, blinked several times, and then turned her head to look up at Leonardo, whose elbow she'd ended up just beside. "Hi!" she greeted like a delighted butterfly.

"Good Evening, Wildcard," Leonardo answered, entirely unperturbed, and without so much as turning to look at her. "After breakfast you will be revisiting your foundational ninjitsu and aikido kamae." He sipped his tea. "The placement of your rear foot remains unconscionably sloppy."

Donatello's mouth drooped open. Mikey froze in place. And Wildcard leaned back with widening eyes and a baffled tug at the corner of her mouth. A tremendous amount of brain activity transpired in plain sight, bright as welding sparks for a fraction of a second. Then she straightened herself, clasped her hands to her sides, and bowed with a sharply obedient, " _Hai!_ "

Leonardo raised his fingers off the tea mug to acknowledge and dismiss her, and Wildcard backed up a hesitant step before turning about and scurrying about the table. Sandro stood immediately to receive her and gathered her into a tight hug. He might as well have run a marathon, adrenaline had winded him so hard. What did any of this mean? Nothing except that Wild was an absurdly fast thinker when under duress... and liked _puns_. "Hey Yang," he trembled.

"Hello, Yin! Are we having scrambled eggs!? There's cheese in it; I smell it; Come to momma breakfast, she'sa hungry for mozzarella!" And since all the adults but the-one-who-couldn't-cook were presently broken, Sandro took her swiftly over to the food to ensure she obtained sensible portions of everything (and not just the cheese-imbued eggs), because Wild usually required some form of supervision while nervous.

"Did I miss something-?" Michelangelo tried to say, but Donatello strode up before Leonardo and demanded with a stamp of that Bo upon the ground:

"How."

"'How?' Has your respect for me truly sunk so low, Donatello?" Leonardo wondered with a tart edge to his voice. "That you would smuggle a 'stranger' repeatedly into my house is worrisome in its own right; that you would feed her of _my_ _food_ and expect me not to notice suggests you think very little of me at all."

Sandro winced and closed his eyes. "The marmalade," he breathed in realization, only to be jarred back to his senses a moment later because Wildcard was already hopping back to her seat! He pursued, swiftly, to find his companion had a healthy appetite and appeared capable of ignoring any and all drama unfolding around her so long as it meant she got to eat.

Donatello did not cow, apologize, or back down. "I am to believe that a jar of _orange_ _jelly_ somehow divulged her name and extracurricular hobbies to you?" Purple Turtle snarled. Sandro leaned over the back of the chair to peer down at the 'her' in question. "Answer me: How!"

"You attempt to pull off a deception of this magnitude and then demand answers of _me_?" Leo inquired in a low voice, nowhere near as serene as his tea-mug and shuttered gaze might suggest. "Tell me first why I am being excluded when I specifically told you I'd both help you and defer to your judgement."

"There is the word!" Donatello howled and pointed accusingly at him. "' _Deception!'_ You hold everyone else to your own unattainable standards! No one expected stick-up-his-ass Leo to give one-inch if it meant 'deceiving' Raphael, but the truth is _you're as bad as anyone_! Admit it to me, you holier-than-thou, uptight, perfectionist bastard: You knew about this before I did, and you said _nothing_!"

Wildcard, of course, shoveled down forkfuls of eggs as if none of this could possibly match for the excitement level inherent to mozzarella.

Leonardo sat slowly back in his chair. "I knew before you did." The silence which followed seemed pregnant for a 'but,' yet Leo made no effort to defend himself. Donatello was too angry to give up, and prompted anyway:

"And you want to judge _me_?!"

"I wish to understand why you have been all-but goading me into confronting you," Leo growled. "To ask why you are treating me like an outsider; to ask where your esteem for me has gone!"

"Check the astral plane, maybe you'll find it there! You know what else is missing? Two people's phones! Funny, how did that happen? No, you know what, I'm _done._ I don't want to hear about how you can justify _thievery_. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my lab."

"Donatello!" Blue Turtle demanded as he abandoned his tea to stand menacingly. "This is exactly what I'm talking about: You are turning everything into personal attack against me! You do not trust me, you disparage my skills, perceptiveness, honor, and mental acumen, you insult me in front of our nephew, you goad and leer almost as if you are enjoying the chance to roar at me. What is _wrong_ with you?"

Donatello whirled around to face him with an enraged shout of, "With _me_!? You _deserve_ to have someone finally–!" only to be startled to silence when Michelangelo shouldered past him.

"Nothing's wrong with Donnie, yo!" was Mikey's interjection as he outright pushed his (much taller) brother protectively behind himself. "Bro you even looked in a _mirror_ lately? You don't talk to anyone, you don't hang out, you don't have fun, listen to music, read, or join movie night; you don't let anyone in, you're just this stone-faced, emotionally unavailable, stick-to-the-rules guy and no one knows how to talk to you anymore!"

Leonardo recoiled, and Donatello looked as if his stomach had been chopped out from within him; for the actual sort of _pain_ had been addressed instead of just the outward symptoms, and Sandro understood perfectly and immediately what all of this was really about. Wildcard's fork paused.

Mikey sounded as if his whole heart was in his voice. "Don's just high-strung cause we don't even know what you're thinking right now, and I'm kinda there in 'uh-oh' territory with him! Sandro needs a few weeks, that's all; Are you gonna keep quiet for that? I get you're mad about being lied to and stuff, but don't take it out on Donnie when–"

"Fine." Leo interrupted firmly. "I will 'take it out on' no one, act upon nothing, and instead return to meditation."

Donatello might have screamed 'That's exactly the problem you dense sack of rocks!' had Michelangelo's impassioned defense not already humbled him, leaving Orange Turtle alone to sputter out a startled: "Wait, what? No, no!"

"What else can I do?" Leo asked of him with a great heave of air. "Do you or do you not want these emotions you've requested? Rationally speaking they are easy to dismiss, and presently none of them are warm and fluffy. If they are not what you thought you were asking for, then rest assured I am well equipped to suppress them."

Realization dawned on Michelangelo's face, but _loathing_ contorted Donatello's, and Sandro knew— _knew_ —it was because the long-term stress of a thousand unfought battles had built his feeling of abandonment to the point where he couldn't hear the vulnerability in Leo's voice, and instead perceived _condescension._ With sudden clarity, Sandro could see _himself_ in both sides of this argument, and the brush of Wild's fingers against his arm told him she saw it too.

"If you think," Donatello began–

"Donnie," Sandro's voice cracked, but he was not alone; and now he understood where his own unhealthy model of self-control had come from. These were his role-models. He squeezed Wild's fingers; He _had_ this. "I-if even _you_ can't talk to someone, or forgive them, or put words to problems so old you've gotten used to them, whose example can I follow?"

Donatello looked to him, all hate and anguish draining out of his face and rendering his expression wide-eyed and numb.

"I-I look up to you," Sandro said, quaking. "All of you. I don't want it to be like this anymore. I talked to uncle Leo last night to ask why he was aloof all the time. He- he _knows_ there is a problem and is authentically trying to a-ask you what is wrong."

"S-sandro, I..." Donatello stammered, before trailed off into remorseful silence. But Mikey, well, Mikey stepped towards Leo with absurdly wary body language, just like one might approach a cornered carnivore. Leonardo didn't look quite at any of them. Orange eyed Blue up and down, before gingerly stepping into reach and attempting a hug.

Leonardo visibly stiffened and lifted his hands woodenly, almost as if he wanted to return the gesture but didn't recall how to imbue it with the right sentiment and feared falsifying it. A moment passed before his shoulders fell and he reached around Michelangelo to enfold him. "I'm sorry," Leo said. "I don't really understand what I've _done_ , or what I ought to have done instead, but I understand that it is real. And I'm sorry."

"Man I'll take it," Mikey sighed almost blissfully. "That's more than we've got in years. It's good to have ya back, bro."

"I haven't _been_ anywhere but here _._ "

"Heh, _maybe_. Kinda been on extended sabbatical in your own head though," Michelangelo snickered fondly as he pulled back. "Donnie?" he looked back to Purple Turtle, who—though considerably deflated, regretful, and lacking for invective—did not seem ready either to talk or to let bygones be bygones. "Yo I think Donnie still needs to vent on ya, bro."

"Say!" Wildcard piped up with a twinkle in her eye as she pointed at the assembled turtles using her forkful of bacon. "There's an idea: Why don't you all fight it out two on one? I'm no expert, but I'm told 'beating one's problems with a stick' is supposed to be cathartic, and together you have... well if we count both sides of two nunchaku, five sticks?"

Something about that suggestion felt sophomoric, nostalgic, and strangely appropriate. Michelangelo and Donatello blinked once or twice and then slowly looked to one another. Mikey raised a brow. Of all the facial expressions Donnie could have broken into, the sly and haughty _grin_ which overtook his mouth was not what Sandro had expected. It felt as if some interesting part of the universe had just changed—or been restored?

The keystone slid into place when Leonardo asked,"Is it intended that I lose on purpose?"

"Are you insinuating you'd _win_?" Donatello purred, abruptly cat-like as he turned back to Leo. "Against two people?"

"Against you and Michelangelo? Yes. I am better than both of you," Leo sounded quite sure of that despite Donnie's unexpected about-face in temperament. Wildcard's suggestion seemed to have hit the same note in him as with his brothers.

"Oh-ho," Mikey cracked his knuckles and neck. "You wanna do this?" he asked Donatello. "Cause I think he's saying he's game!"

"I'd love _nothing better_ ," Donatello said. "In fact, let's make it a bet: Losing side spends six hours in _Hashi_."

"I don't see how it will help anything if you both–" Leo protested, but Mikey stuck out his tongue and clapped and hurried past him towards the dojo, and Donatello followed at an eager and confident saunter.

"It is _on_ yo!" they heard an Orange turtle crow.

Leonardo blinked in confusion at where they'd been, and slowly turned himself about to raise a doubtful brow after them down the hallway. Then he straightened himself and glanced to Wildcard and Sandro. "Well then, finish your breakfast and come along, you two. This will be educational if nothing else." He pursued his youngest siblings at a soft walk.

Wildcard stood up on her chair and settled her hands on Sandro's shoulders, and as he looked at her she told him very firmly and in no uncertain terms: "Well done."

Sandro sucked in a deep breath, nodded curtly, and then reached up to cup her face and direct her forehead down to touch his own. She wrapped her arms about the back of his neck and closed her eyes. Safe. Together. One more person knew, and still they were together.

"So what happened?!" she asked in her usually loud and excited tone of voice as he released. "Holy Toledo, everyone looked ready to have a heart attack! Did he just spring that on you guys?! How long's he been spying on us!? Did I made a good first impression!? Is Donnie okay!? Are _you_ okay?! What's a _Hashi_?! Hey bro, quick question: is that your food over there? Are you going to finish it?"

Unbeknownst to either child, Leo paused in the hallway, closed his eyes, and smiled.

Yes, _that_ was definitely a Yang.


	45. Pay No Attention To

Sandro got the best of Wild by letting her finish his (cold) breakfast while he stole her plate and got fresh (hot) food for himself.

In retribution she leaped onto his shell from behind on their way into the dojo. He pretended not to notice. Besides, carrying her let the two of them touch without looking sappy, and he still wasn't sure how 'okay' some of his family members would be with that. Donatello had been given plenty of opportunities to take issue with their public displays of affection, but so far hadn't, and that was a good start. Leonardo seemed most likely to impose a traditionalist school principal's 'twelve inches of space between the genders, please' rule, but they'd already underestimated him so many times in one day perhaps it was best not to assume.

Could he really beat both Donatello and Michelangelo?

Preliminary warm-ups had just finished as Sandro entered, and he got Wild off his shell so that the of them could quickly take a seat off to the side and watch. Sandro elbowed Wild until she got up on her knees with him, as was only respectful. She'd taken Aikido; She knew better. Didn't stop her from sticking her tongue out him, though. He returned the sentiment.

"Children," Leonardo said, and Sandro snapped to attention. "Watch closely."

"Yeah, watch us pummel him, yo!" Michelangelo taunted, bumping shoulders with a grinning Donatello before wading out to the side with both nanchaku held folded and ready. Normally, Mikey would wink, hand-stand, or make funny faces at Sandro while waiting for a practice spar to start; but not now, now he looked uncharacteristically eager and focused.

* * *

Wildcard glanced thoughtfully between the two younger brothers, and thought their camaraderie had never been more visible. They seemed to say more to one another with smirks, eyebrow-raises, jostles, pats, and elbow-touches than most people could have said with words. _Will we be like that, one day?_

But a glance at Sandro told her he was more interested in Leonardo. Wildcard raised a brow and then gave a dramatic roll of her eyes. Well okay, Wild _did_ understand why a person would get excited about watching an 'elite ninja' show off his stuff; but Leo's sureness of his own victory had rubbed her the wrong way, and now she just wanted to see him trip and fall on his face. It would be a _total_ letdown if he won.

Besides, who in their right mind would root for Leo over Mikey and Donnie?! Nobody, that's who! Blue was the least interesting brother even in comic form: boringly morally upright, hyper-competent, and with as much personality as a saltine cracker. The only times Leo's character ever shined were when he was paired up with someone dark for the sake of drama and moral was like his team's Superman or Captain America knockoff. Which was to say, he was not to Wild's taste in superheroes at all.

 _I'm not sure I should be critiquing Sandro's relatives based on my preferences in super-heroic narrative,_ Wild's conscience nagged her. Hmph! Well fine, then, but Mikey and Donnie were the underdogs in this fight regardless of numbers, and she was totally waving an imaginary foam finger _for them_ and not for Mr. Superiority Complex.

Orange and Purple each moved into a dynamic, aggressive stance at a clear angle; and it felt like they had a sixth sense for one another's spatial positioning. Leo, in sharp contrast to his siblings, stood in a quiet and reserved posture that barely looked like a combat stance at all, with one shoulder forward but his katana held down and close to himself.

"Ready?" Donatello asked, and Leo nodded. "Sandro, would you do the honors?"

Wildcard glanced to her brother, who said: " _Hajime,_ " and then she had to very quickly look back to the arena because those turtles could move _fast_ , and Mikey was already shouting, " _COWABUNGA DUDES!_ " with Donatello right at heel.

Leo stepped forward with quiet, measured steps, and then those katana were suddenly _everywhere_ , like the silver feathers of some primordial spirit bird, turning aside, redirecting, and out-right parrying the Bo and both Nanchaku. Every slam of wood and metal was a heavy clack and the softest of whispers. Stab, twist, parry, flick, _woosh_. Yes, the katana did literally 'woosh' when he spun about to catch a high slam of Donatello's Bo and redirect it towards Michelangelo instead, tangling it briefly with a nunchuck.

Nanchaku were crazy weapons! Wildcard had no previous experience watching them, and they could change direction as result of very small and subtle motions. Add in Mikey's agility (and inherent spontaneity), and her precognition left her glaze-eyed and dizzy instead of better-informed. _Look at anything else, gah!_

Leo? Leo clearly suffered no disorientation at all: He redirected, hampered, and avoided the strikes of the nanchaku with finesse. _SLAM-CLACK-CRIC-CRACK._ The recoil she witnessed as weapons hit together was amazing. Both Donatello and Michelangelo could work up a tremendous amount of momentum behind their strikes, and it was suddenly quite clear to Wildcard that they could kill people _with sticks_ , which somehow seemed way more badass than killing them with swords. Donatello's Bo looked nearly as lethal as a helicopter turbine.

At the same time, it was fast becoming clear Mikey and Donatello were not winning. Mikey dove in to take advantage of his team's superior numbers only to be sent rolling away in an effort to avoid a slash across the back of the shell; Donatello tried to follow up, but Blue Turtle spun about and with a double-sweep of his katana sent Donnie cracking hard into a wall and ducking under a follow-up swing. So both younger siblings regained their footing and flanked their older brother simultaneously, which surely would win them ground.

But it didn't.

Leo—whose stance remained conservative, poised, graceful, _birdlike_ —was a veritable tornado of steel. The katana seemed more like silver ribbons or hoops than gently curved swords; they were high whenever they needed to be high, low when they needed to be low, and they avoided each and every attempt by Michelangelo to hook and control them with the chains of the nanchaku. Leonardo found an opening before either of his siblings, and with a tilt and a spinning jump, he brought a high kick straight into the side of Donatello's head, and hit him hard enough to outright ground him. Michelangelo leaped in to either win or at least help direct attention away from Purple Turtle, only to be thrown back as Leo landed, maintained momentum and balance, and caught Orange Turtle with both katana to the side of the shell.

SLAM! Michelangelo rolled, stumbled, skid to a knee, and then rolled again to position himself defensively beside a winded Donatello. Leonardo slowly faced them, this time with a different stance: one katana raised forward to lead with, the other held to follow, and the feet further apart. Wildcard, lost to whatever she'd been previously thinking, stared at Blue Turtle in wonderment and curiousity. _He's so light on his feet._

But, still, the fight wasn't over.

* * *

Donatello spun his Bo, planted the butt into the ground, and used it to rise to both feet. He offered Mikey a hand up. Mikey took it and then nudged his tallest brother. "I think this calls for plan forty-two b," he suggested aloud. "What do you think, Donster?"

"Revision three?" Donatello inquired innocently, but he was smiling too. The two shared a loud smack of a hi-three.

Leonardo lowered his swords an inch. "Oh come _on_. There is no possible way you could have managed to get _Michelangelo_ to memorize two plans, Donnie, much less forty-two divided up into letterings and revisions."

"We'll see!" Donnie purred as Michelangelo bolted to the side, rolled, retook his feet, and stopped at a wider angle.

"You've already tried flanking me," Leo remarked. "How did that go for you?"

"Patience, grasshopper," Mikey intoned sagely, "all will become clear in time!"

This time, as the two brothers approached, they behaved entirely differently. Rather than hemming Leo relentlessly into a wall or forcing a rapid advantage, they played everything safe and cautious. An annoyed Leo come halfway out to meet them, and they circled him so slowly that it was clear he'd soon be taking the fight into his own hands and driving one or both of them into the ground.

But then the upset happen: Michelangelo dove at Leonardo, feinted repeatedly and ended up not attacking him at all. Instead he ducked under one katana and turned aside one another, and ran past Leo and towards Donatello. Donnie was midswing of the Bo, but—rather than strike at Leo's shell—he pulled his momentum down and closer to center. Mikey grabbed hold of the far end of the Bo–

–and Donatello _flung_ him in a wide sling-shot arc, into the air like a cannon-ball of brown shell. Leonardo barely ducked in time, fended off the overhead _crack_ of a nanchaku, and blocked Donatello's follow-up jab with the Bo staff. Mikey touched down feet-first into the wall, while still at least ten feet in the air. He leaped off, redirecting his motion into a solid pounce towards Leonardo–

A mistake happened: Either Leo had anticipated Mikey would try to disarm him of a katana, or had simply been bracing himself not to be knocked over, Wildcard wasn't sure. What _did_ happen was that Mikey outright released the nanchaku he'd been leading with, leaving to tangle vainly around one of Leo's katana. Instead, Mikey grabbed the far lip of his brother's shell, kicked off his side, and Donatello dropped low to knock out Leo's feet from under him.

Blue Turtle went down onto his shell with a hard crack, though he remained armed and looked more _curious_ than alarmed. Wildcard had the feeling Leo might elude them even still, and roll back to his feet in the blink of an eye—if only he'd correctly anticipated another unaltogether forseen component of play forty-two b, revision 3!—for Michelangelo capped off this marvelous tackle by...

...grabbing hold of escaping Blue Turtle's leg and ticking him mercilessly at the foot. Rather than escaping both brothers in a tremendous spin of ninja elusiveness, Leo fell back down with an indignant yelp. He was given insufficient time to process how cleverly he'd been beaten before Donatello had leaped on top of him, smacking one katana away with a Bo strike that would have pulped the hand of a lesser being.

Leo rolled, dislodging one of them, then the other, but neither quickly enough to keep them from piling back on top of them, with Donatello abandoning the Bo to tickle him under the opposite arm and try to wrench the limb into a pin. Wide-eyed Leo was clearly flummoxed as to how any of this had managed to happen, and the way he grunted and sniffed sharp intakes of breath to avoid screaming or busting his sides with laughter was actually almost endearing.

"He's down! You've got his arm!?" Donatello did, so, left devoid of options, Leo tickled _him_. And Donatello shrieked like a girl and nearly leaped out of his skin, and Mikey dove to keep Leo down, and so Leo of course had to tickle Mikey next, who reflexively kicked Donatello in the face, who of course had to help Leo tickle Mikey in retaliation; and, well, before anyone was any the wiser it was clear all sense of sides or victory had evaporated and the result was a free-for-all of grappling, snickering, squealing, yelping, panting, cackling turtles. Giant ones.

* * *

"So," Sandro whispered to Wild with regards to the haphazard brawl that was rolling past them in a wheel of shells, with all its shrieks, and its hisses, and its giggles, "I think this might just be the best thing I have ever seen in my life."

"It seriously just unthroned the existence of cheese for me," Wildcard admitted, regretting nothing. "Which until recently was only ever jeopardized by 'Spontaneous hugs delivered by Sandro.'"

"B-Team is the Best Team!" Mikey suddenly yelled from amid the chaos, clearly having pinned down Leo at least for a moment. "A-Team is for Assholes!"

"Dat turtle's mah spirit animal," Wildcard told Sandro wistfully, in Sandro's Hudson River twang.

He glanced at her suspiciously, aware he'd just been copied and uncertain how to feel about it—or how to feel about his _own_ accent. After a moment, as turtles went tackling and rolling by again, he slipped an arm around her, and tugged her to his side in one of those spontaneous-hugs-delivered-by-Sandro she'd been talking about.

"So what do we do? I'm scared; we mustn't jar them back to their senses!" Wild whispered. "Clearly they need a few hours of not-adult time so this can resolve in a meaningful manner."

"Hmm." Sandro reflected for the first time that 'being immature' may have been a crucial ingredient that had gone missing in his family somewhere along the way. That would explain where beat-boxing had disappeared to. He stored that thought away for future consideration at a later date. "Wanna sneak out to play video games?"

* * *

"So I turned over the _Animal Crossing_ game box," Sandro said once they'd safely escaped the dojo with no adults the wiser. "You want to know what the date on the back read? 2001."

"What!? Our _video game_ is over three years older than us?" Wildcard took a moment to soak this in. "Wow. It aged well."

"I had no complaints!" he laughed, and then picked up a fresh game box still in its original plastic, and tossed it to her. "But, uh, I bought a copy of the most recent _A Story of Seasons,_ which is kinda similar. It's still single-player. We can play something else if you'd like."

For two people as competitive as Wildcard and Sandro, _A Story of Seasons—_ a quaint Japanese farm game previously called _Harvest Moon_ —made no sense at all. It was too mellow, too mundane, too _slow_. What the two of them really ought to have done was bought Guitar Hero, or picked up the latest Halo or Call of Duty Clone and blasted one another away on the XBox, or even brought out a faithful but tried-and-true peice of competitive family media such as Smash Brothers or Mario Carts.

But no. They ended up sitting beside one-another arguing over what color hair their avatar out to have and critiquing eachother's non-existent farming skills. Maybe they needed some low-adrenaline time to offset the rest of their 'morning.' They passed the controller back and forward, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes with accusations that one or another person was clearly unqualified to be a farmer and needed swift emergency intervention before they all died of starvation.

Sandro berated Wild for _daring_ to try skipping over the dialog, and Wild told him that the only way she'd ever possibly care about a story in a video game is if Sandro read it aloud for her benefit, which ended up being a splendid idea because that gave her an excuse to listen to Sandro narrate. Shell, he even did slightly different character voices! Everything went swimmingly up until they ran smack into a chick who was clearly one of their avatar's romantic interests, because then Sandro slipped into sultry falsetto to play her. Wild turned her head to squint up at him, and he batted his eyes at her and lisped an effeminate, "Yes?" She broke out laughing all over his shoulder, and defeatedly passed him the controller, and he grinned and pulled her half-a-hug, half-a-noogie.

"That prank," Sandro suddenly remembered. "Splinter, we never told you we videotaped the prank. Yesterday got too intense. Hold on." He paused the game and dug his phone out, and opened up a video for her. He passed it into her hands as she wiped tears of mirth from her eyes and leaned excitedly forward.

When on-screen Michelangelo/Angel-Cakes strut into the room, pounced wide-eyed Raphael, and dipped him low, Wildcard nearly died, and Sandro had to start laughing all over again at it from just how _fantastically perfect_ it had been when they heard Raphael's 'HOLD HIS ARMS!' bellow through the speaker.

Wildcard hiccoughed and straightened up, still sputtering laughs, and pointed at the phone. "Is that it!?" she demanded. "That's who you sound like when you get riled up!? Raphael!"

Flinch. Sandro paused the playback and looked down. Wildcard stiffened and then leaned flush into him. Her palms cupped his cheeks, and her thumbs smoothed gently back from his temples.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I forget how close yesterday still is. I... I like all your colors, even the red ones."

Sandro took a deep breath and chafed her shoulder reassuringly. "Ya know I'm really intimidated, worrying about talking 'feelings' with him," Sandro admitted. "Would he laugh, say 'What the fuck do I care?' shove me and tell me to suck it up? I don't know. And you asked once if anyone had ever gaslighted me, and now I realized why mom pushes all my buttons, and that I don't trust her to hear me out. But after talking to my uncles afterwards, I learned life was tougher than they'd let me see, when I was little. My parents... I realized... I mean I think... I think they don't mean to hurt me the way they do. I don't think they know."

One of her hands lowered to his shoulder, and the fingers of the other trailed inquisitively over the angle of his cheekbone. _Heh._ He raised his gaze fondly back to her. _Staring again._ She seemed deep in thought, and he knew from months of being her best friend in the world that she'd distilled more information than he'd realized from whatever he'd just said.

"How old are you parents?" she asked.

"Thirty-one and thirty-two. Mom's older."

Wildcard raised a brow. "Okay, I know you are bad at math but... What's thirty-one minus fourteen?"

"Seventeen?"

"So your dad was sixteen when you were conceived. That's like only two years older than you are. Do you feel emotionally and mentally equipped to find out you're gonna be a father two years from now?"

Sandro stared. Then he sat back against the couch. He was silent a long moment, blinking off at nothing. " _Oh_."

"And hey, your uncles were just as young, too. Seventeen-year-old Donnie going full Mom-Mode must have been adorable. Reminds me! What did Leo say that got you all grumpy last night?"

"That..." Sandro shook his head to clear it. "That the reason he's so distant is because he feared treating me like a son and stealing me from my dad. It seemed to mean a lot to him, but it sounded stupid to me. Donatello raised me—" and admitting so aloud still made a lump catch in his throat, but it was true, "—so what harm could Leo have done?"

Wildcard shuttered her eyes and then looked almost suspiciously towards the dojo, and to where the distant murmur of voices suggested three uncles had calmed down and were now talking softly with one another. Probably about very similar topics to Wild and San, actually. She seemed unusually introspective, as if something she'd previously thought to be one way had turned out entirely different. Sandro nudged her, and she blinked at him and cleared her throat.

"Well, gotta make a disclaimer here: I've met Leo once now, and the rest of what I know about him is mined from a children's comic written by Michelangelo, who is something of a biased author and will probably give everything a blissfully happy ending. This is a story in which a cat and some Neapolitan ice cream got hit by Mutagen and fused together, which is pure nonsense because ice cream doesn't even have genes."

He laughed. "Yeah but your perspective is normally upside-down anyway," Sandro prodded. "You got under Mikey's skin in two days, and we're so isolated that maybe a fresh eye is all it takes. What's your read?"

"Well it sounds like your uncle accidentally admitted he coped badly with the realization he'll never have a little family of his own like Raphael does, that he missed out on whatever chance he'd ever had—if there was even a chance in the first place. It sounds like he's saying he really missed his brother but couldn't begrudge him his happiness or April's hard work, and wanted to glom really hard on you as compensation, but felt that would be inappropriate for whatever reason."

"He was overwhelmed," dawned on the younger turtle. "My grandfather was the one he would have went to for advice, and Splinter had just died. The only way Leo knew how to handle any of that intense emotional onslaught was by retreating into himself. Only no one noticed because they took it personally." He pinched bridge of his nose. "And I was born on the anniversary, to boot..."

"They seem calmer now," Wild mused. "Let's bring them some tea, coffee, and soda as a means of conveying that we approve of what has transpired thus far and don't think less of them for letting their inner children out for a few hours.

"That was honestly fantastic," Sandro admitted, thinking back to the tickle fight. "Alright, let's go boil some water-Eeiaaahg!" He leaped up and grabbed his arms to himself, because Wild had just tickled _him_ under the arm. "I will _kill_ you," he warned with an aggressive shove at her head, and she snickered conspiratorially. "Come on! You're making the tea!"


	46. We Love You Too, Leo

"Well I don't know about either of you," hummed a thoroughly pooped Donatello from his position, upside-down, atop the pile of limbs and shells. "But _I_ feel much better." He lazily stretched his legs. A great many new bruises had been acquired in this endeavor!

"You were snortling and squealing so hard you sounded like a hyperventilating pig," an equally winded Leo reflected wryly from somewhere under Purple Turtle's left elbow. "It was nice to hear you laugh. Have I been bludgeoned to your satisfaction?"

"You guys are crushinggg meeeee!" wheezed Michelangelo from the bottom of the dog pile as he kicked his legs and giggled. Donatello snickered at him and Leo laughed. "Heelllp! This is almost as bad as being sat on by Raaphhh! I'mma diieee!"

Suggesting Raphael was heavier than both of them put together ought to have been funny, but Leo tensed up so hard that Donatello could actually feel _the plates of his shell_ contract. "Leo?" Purple Turtle called worriedly, rolling clumsily off the pile and wincing as a bruised knee hit the ground.

Blue Turtle solemnly propped himself up on all fours and waved a hand to dismiss the topic as Michelangelo escaped from under him. Donatello hesitated, heart-rate elevating. This was far too early for Leo to retreat again.

"Leo?" Mikey reached over to touch his shell. "Yo, stay with us. We totally miss your obnoxious lectures, long-winded battle-plans, and science fiction fanboy gushing. All of it, honest!"

"What? Again, Mikey, I have _not gone anywhere_ ," Leonardo insisted with a frown. "We are not children anymore. People grow up."

"No!" Mikey fumbled and whined. "You're just ignoring stuff! This version of Adult-Leo _sucks_ , yo, is there some kind of reset button!?" Leo rolled his eyes and sat back as if this only sounded like juvenile nonsense to him.

Shell. Someone had to get back under his skin again before he gave up trying to understand them. Donatello fetched their exasperated leader's face with both hands. Maybe coming from a fellow introvert, this would mean something: "Leo I have lived in this sewer with you for thirty years, and part of what made our intense isolation from the rest of the world bearable was how much we irritated each other, hit each other, sat on each other, _played with_ each other. If you are going to call that childish then, regardless of how old we get, childishness is something I _need_ from you."

Selecting to use 'I' instead of 'we' felt excruciatingly uncomfortable, enough to make Donatello's skin prickle, but he needed to change how his brother _heard_ the problem, and this might hit him straight in the protective streak. Vindication happened: Leo's brows creased upward in concern.

Donatello leaned forward, hugged his eldest brother about the neck and shoulder, and squeezed tightly as if physically trying to keep hold of that wounded, ticklish, wry 'person' who might possibly be his actual brother. "We have only six fingers and can count the faces we see every weekday on one hand. This life is lonely, stressful, and easily unhappy. We want to rely on you, but it's more than that because we want to be _there for you, too_. We— _I_ —need to hear you laugh. Instead, there are whole months we see so little of you it feels like you died when dad did. Sandro barely knows who you _are._ "

Leonardo didn't know what to do with him. He sat there on his knees, being hugged, as if decay had rusted away all the neurons and synapses necessarily for actually making sense of anything Donatello had said or done and thus initiating interpersonal contact; like an old car grinding with the key jammed tightly into the ignition, as the engine simply failed to to start. _Please. Do not give up. We are brothers; We're all we have. I will sit here with you, with my heart on my damn sleeve, for however long it takes, if you will just please not give up on figuring this—_

—Spark. Leo shuffled forward on his knees, sat, and grabbed hold of him around the shell and neck with both arms, both legs, and the _tail_ , and smothered him in a hug more ardent and innocent than anything even Michelangelo had thrown at him since they'd been wide-eyed children. Donatello nearly pulled away in reflexive alarm before years and years and years of sibling bonding experiences caught back up with him, and he hugged back for all that he was worth, clawing into the scutes of his brother's shell for purchase.

 _I love you too, Leo._ He closed his eyes tightly.

And then, of course, Michelangelo threw himself over both of them, and _smooched_ them loudly, and their moment of reconciliation was so overdue that neither of them could muster the annoyance and revulsion necessary to shove him away for being an idiot. Leo wormed a hand free to yank Mikey down, and Donatello got an arm around their irrepressible little brother's shell, too, and they pulled him into their circle. And though they still didn't have Raphael, for the first time in years it at least finally felt like they were _three_ again, instead of _two-and-a-ghost._

* * *

"We should talk about Sandro," Leo said, when the introverts had put a few important inches of space back into the equation, but everyone was still sitting comfortably close on the dojo carpets.

"We _should_ talk about Sandro," Donatello agreed. "He's built up some unhealthy psychological habits which it's becoming shamefully obvious he must have learned from all of us."

"Do we have an idea exactly what he is coping with?" Leo wondered.

"Yo this is kinda relevant!" Michelangelo exclaimed. "Cause the way I see it, it has to do with how much pressure there was on _us_ to grow up overnight. Blam-o, we had a baby to raise! Time to adultify!"

"We projected our maturation process onto Sandro and didn't let him be childish," Donatello translated from Mikese. "For instance: We had a low tolerance for letting him argue with us, and set up a bad precedent of never listening to him. He was very smart, extremely loving, and wanted us to be happy, so he adapted himself to give us whatever we'd approve of... which was usually whatever we were 'fixing' with ourselves. He started acting way above his age, and yielded to everything."

"And it looked fine for awhile! He was a great kid from _our_ perspective," Mikey explained. "Except it was _super bad_ inside, because he never had any breathing room to make mistakes or decide stuff for himself. Look at his genes: his parents are both rebellious, loud, impulsive hot-heads. We made him into a _time-bomb_ , yo. Puberty hit, and BAM." He spread out his hands as if visualizing painting the walls. "Anger. Anger _everywhere_...!"

"You think he is a lot more like Raphael and April than he used to display?" Leo reasoned, and his tone of voice said he could see how this might be true. "A tree pruned before growing enough leaves to show off any base shape?"

"Oh-ho!" Mikey grinned. "You ever wanna see Little-Raphael, ask Mini to prank him sometime. It's _amazing_. San's personality folds inside out, the difference is crazy cool!"

"Speaking of Wildcard," Donatello interjected, "Mikey, I have no idea how you managed to see that child's redeeming character attributes under all the air-headed, psychotic blather. She was a _tremendous_ asset yesterday, I don't even know where to begin."

"Please try," Leo edged gently. "Sandro came to me with some very big questions last night which I was woefully unprepared for."

"Hey that turned out for the best!" Mikey punched his shoulder, and Leo did give a bashful little submission to the truth of that statement. "But yeah, what happened, D?"

"What didn't happen? If you'd asked me about that girls's intellect two days ago, I would have labeled her a _fairly dim bulb_ ," Donatello said. "But yesterday I watched her synthesize three months of vastly accumulated observations into uncannily accurate insights."

"Yo, Mini-Meme is _sharp_ ," Mikey insisted firmly. "Like sharp like you, but also sharp like me. Her IQ, EQ, whatever the Q—they're high, bro. Though speaking of kids who have grown up too fast: Mini." He elbowed Leo. "Oh, hey, she got Lil Bro talking about his feelings before D could." Leo didn't seem surprised, but neither did he appear impressed.

"She came to me afterwards, worried but candid," Donnie explained. "I helped the two of them review some footage of his talk with April—but Sandro became violently angry when the camera caught Raphael looking concerned for him." Donatello crossed his arms. "She said something I will only repeat, suggesting that Sandro did not feel Raphael loved him. That, and a few related insights, made him defuse and collapse into her. I can only _assume_ she hit the nail on the head."

"Oh _shit_ ," Mikey frowned. "Really?"

"I... I may have made progress in helping with that," Leo realized aloud. "This morning he came to ask me to validate my claim that his parents had not wanted to leave him alone, and he seemed to calm down as I supplied evidence."

Donatello straightened. "Leo... he must have came to _me_ after you, and asked me to tell him stories about that same basic time period. I realized we skimmed over how rough it was, poverty. I think he was fishing for evidence and context to support your claims."

"Is this a trust thing?" Leo tried to understand.

"He's trying to rebuild his model of his parents from scratch," Donatello explained, now very excited. "So he wants to make sure his data is good and unbiased. He's already trying to work past the problem _by himself_...!"

Mikey burst out laughing, and Donatello looked to him in surprise. "Oh! Oh, it's... It's just, he's such a combo of all of us!" Orange Turtle praised. "Has Raphie's temper, but collects 'data' and makes 'models,' and then will quietly problem-solve his own self-improvement. And he has my video game scores! What a kid!"

What a kid, indeed. But something else had been bothering Donatello. "Leo? You were keeping an eye on Sandro while he was sneaking topside, weren't you? I assume you were hoping to let him get the 'rebelliousness' out in a safeish way while you were still near enough to help in an emergency?" Leo nodded. "But you didn't mention Wildcard to me before Mikey did. What's your opinion of her?"

Leo sat back, reflecting. "My opinion? Pragmatically speaking, I'm not sure it matters. She knows Sandro exists, which makes her a target for our enemies and obligates us to protect her. Casting her out for anything as petty as her affection for toilet humor would be unjustifiably risky. As to the girl herself... she's been given every chance to betray him, and has instead demonstrated loyalty. If I am not mistaken, that is already everything a turtle could ask for in a friend."

Donatello leaned back. "I didn't even think of it that way. You're right. We are not normal people, our entry threshold is at 'not trying to kill, exploit, or experiment upon us,' and she's acid-tested."

Leo nodded. "I am sorry both for my reticence, and for 'dumping' all of these decisions onto you earlier, Donnie. I... felt that I had mishandled the situation enough already, and that I ought to listen to you. I did not mean to make you feel _alone_." Errors were uncommon for Leo to make, much less admit to, so Donatello decided to take this with weighted sincerity. He touched his brother's shoulder meaningfully, absolving him.

"Kinda dawning on me we hit the jackpot," Mikey murmured slowly. "How often do you find a nocturnal, home-schooled, athletic kid with low parental oversight who wants to spend her days in a sewer roughhousing and doing homework with a turtle?"

"...Would be one hell of a classified ad."

* * *

Donatello was grateful to finally have both his brothers together in a brainstorming session; they gave him a wider perspective. The three of them were still talking when Leo lifted a hand to still the chatter, and they heard soft footsteps coming down the hall. A white-bandanaed child appeared with two steaming cups under her arm, and wordlessly skipped up to offer Donatello some very black coffee.

"Ah. Thank you," Donatello appreciated. She beamed and then hurried over to offer Leo some fresh tea. "What's the occasion?"

She turned a bright-eyed grin back to him. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a _really_ cute and dorky laugh?"

Donatello straightened and sputtered, "E-excuse me?" but a mischievous Michelangelo had already stuck out his tongue and snagged Wildcard from behind to tickle her, and she shrieked, flailed, and howled something like 'Betrayal!' as she tried to escape his lap. Betrayal indeed!

"Wait a minute! Where is _my_ drink?" Orange Turtle demanded, holding her aloft upside-down to inspect her suspiciously. Donatello was taken-aback, and glanced to Leo to make sure his eldest brother found this equally strange. Wild affected ignorance. Mikey pouted. Wild snickered and then clapped her hands together and produced an Orange Crush can from nowhere for him. Mikey squeaked excitedly and opened it one-handed as he flipped her onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Wildcard—who apparently found _none_ of this strange—propped herself up on his shell, lifted a hand to shield her mouth conspiratorially, and whispered loudly:

"Are Mom and Dad done fighting?" and Mikey would have lost Orange Crush through his nose if he hadn't known how much hell Leo would have given him over getting soda on the carpets. He coughed, leaned his head into her and asked:

"Yo I sure hope so! Which one would get custody of me in a divorce?"

"Mom, _duh,_ " she gestured to Donnie.

" _Excuse_ me!" Donatello squawked.

"I love this child!" Mikey oozed, hugging all of Wildcard temporarily to himself. She kissed his bandana! He spun her about and set her back on her feet, and she stuck out her tongue and flicked a wave as she turned about to hop off.

"What was that?" Purple Turtle asked when she was gone. Leo's expression asked the same thing.

Mikey looked back to him with a roll of his eyes. "You're weirded out I want to play with her? I'm weirded out you _don't_ want to play with her. Didn't you just tell Leo we only see three faces in a day? Well, genius, adding her makes _four._ And it's not like she and Lil Bro are gonna be kids much longer; both are a little walled up to begin with. "

Well that was... _one_ way of looking at things, but Wildcard becoming a permanent fixture of their weekday was by no means a sure thing. She was loud, annoying, reckless, and _unknown;_ they had no idea if she'd grow bored and wander off one day, much less whether she'd secure Raphael and April's permission to visit! Wasn't bonding with a stranger's child inappropriate to begin with? _April bonded with Splinter_ , Donnie's memory nagged. Put on-the-spot, put off-his-guard, and put-out, Purple Turtle could only insult: "For someone so 'walled up,' she certainly warmed up to _you_ quickly."

"We're Lil Bro's family. That makes us 'safe,'" Mikey quirked a brow. "Have you seriously not noticed she watches you go to the lab like she's got ants in her pants, but is scared to ask if she can see inside?" Donatello _had_ , but one glimpse of her face had made him rapidly enumerate how many fire extinguishers he had in the lair. "Well, whatever dude! The kid who brought you a disarmed smart missile is signaling loudly and on all frequencies that she's recruiting to fill an adult shortage. Do with that knowledge what you'd like!"

Frowning, Donatello once more reflected that brothers were good for brainstorming sessions.

Leo sipped his tea.

"Wait a minute," Donatello recalled. "There was a wager on this fight."

* * *

"Will someone finally explain to me what _Hashi_ is?" Wild demanded as the children poked their heads into the exercise room. Both younger brothers were grinning deviously to themselves as they cleared away weights and set up a piece of wood to balance upon a high wedge.

"It's a punishment," Donatello was very smug-sounding, despite apparently having resolved the core of the issue against Leo. Whatever this was, it was too golden an opportunity for him to pass up.

" _Hashi_ means 'bridge,'" Sandro explained almost nervously as Leo dutifully stepped up onto the plank and sank into a graceful squat. "They're exercises for strength, balance, and endurance. They're _hard_ , and you have to do them for hours, and every time you fall or mess up it just takes longer to be done."

"It's how dad used to punish us," Mikey supplemented with a big grin as Donatello came forward to give a bored and annoyed-looking Leo some chopsticks, and then balanced eggs upon the chopsticks. Donnie was clearly having the time of his life. "But now we threaten each-other with it all the time, ha!"

"Only me and Mikey ever actually get _put_ in Hashi, though," Sandro amended a little reverently, as if Donnie's behavior wasn't making it somewhat obvious. "Everyone has to do something different. Mikey's is boring, all he has to do is hold a handstand on the arms of a chair for hours."

"With nothing else to do at all!? Holy chalupa its a form of torture!" Wild concluded, and Mikey gave her a look of intense agreement. It was nice to have someone else appreciate the genius of Splinter's punishment assignment; his brothers had _no idea_!

"Well in this case," Leo decided from where he was focusing on his eggs, and goodness only knew how he was managing not to overbalance on a makeshift sea-saw while _squatting_ , "I think the goal is most probably just humiliation."

Donnie patted him on the head and sang, "Oh cheer up, we'll see you in six hours!" Then he straightened up and sighed. "I think I'm going to make a _nine_ _cheese_ _pizza_ for lunch. What do you say, Mikey, Sandro? Want to help me?"

Leo didn't give him the satisfaction of a groan, but did sigh at least, and that was good enough for Donatello, who headed out with a big grin on his face. Wild decided this was proof Donatello was slightly evil, but in a cute way. He'd clearly gone a long time with pent-up anxiety on the issue, and anyone who been able to act the saint after that would have been her first suspect in the event of a serial murder.

Sandro might have had hard time deciding whether to give Leo a little apologetic bow on the way out, but Mikey whooped and Wildcard was already out the door upon hearing the word 'Cheese,' so he hurried after them. And the kitchen was filled with sounds of bake-ware and preheating ovens.

* * *

The hour ticked by.

Footsteps came hesitantly back towards the exercise room. Leonardo raised a curious brow, and looked over as hazel eyes peeked into the room. She was unusually quiet, and tilted her head to the side. Then she came in and plopped down in the middle of the floor to watch him.

"You are about to become tragically bored," Leo warned her.

"Naw, I'd push you over before it came to that," she reassured him, tapping her toes together. "I think this means you're going to miss out on that footwork session you promised me, though."

"I would be very surprised were you to accept my tutelage after today's performance," he remarked, carefully turning over an egg. "I addressed you with an arrogance and surety better befitting a master of my craft, only to prove unable to win a fight in my own dojo. It is nothing short of appropriate that I have been reduced to the level of a circus performer for your amusement this afternoon."

"On the contrary," Wild hugged her knees and peered up at him as if she found something fascinating, "this humanizes you."

Leo glanced at her, knowing she'd bluffed her confidence on meeting him that morning, and unsurprised to hear she'd found him intimidating. In part, he'd _intended_ to be. After seeing his youngest brother interact wither her, he was feeling decidedly softer-edged. "If you truly do wish for a lesson in footwork this evening, and are not merely making conversation, rest assured Michelangelo will help you."

"Wait. Why would you do that?" He glanced at her, not knowing what she'd taken issue with. "You wanted to teach me, for whatever reason. All poetic self-deprecation aside, it _is_ your dojo, right? So that makes you the teacher."

"I share this home with two other admirable ninja."

Her voice grew almost flustered or even defensive. "Was Karai a real person?"

The seesaw wobbled. Leonardo frowned down at her. Her brows were furrowed and she did not smile, not even at his expense. If she had not been trying to get a quick rise out of him, what had that been about? She looked like she was trying to understand something. "You presume that a polite avenue of conversation upon freshly meeting a person?"

She was quiet for a moment. Then her expression smoothed out and she stood herself up and sank into the appropriate stance for basic kata. "If you think that being sacked by the tickle-squad should cost you my respect, then you haven't been paying attention," she chirped as she moved through the steps. "I don't _have_ any respect for anyone."

"Which will make learning a martial art difficult," Leo said with a warning edge, back to his chopsticks and not at all impressed. "Michelangelo's jovial temperament makes him suited to instructing or at least entertaining a hobbyist."

"You know I'd almost take that as a rude dismissal," she mused aloud as she continued practicing, "except you only said it after _losing._ Do you not think you're likable? I thought the thing with the toaster was hilarious, the weird sniffle sounds you made when you were trying not to laugh were adorable, and when you actually tickle-fought back, I secretly almost rooted for you. _Don't tell Mikey_."

"...I had not intended to."

"Though I suppose if your own competence level in ninjitsu really _is_ all you care about, I suppose could be honest, and tell you I've never seen anyone fight so beautifully in my entire life. So, you know, if you need the ego boost or something..."

"Toes out."

She nearly jumped out of her skin and peeked behind herself. "Which foot should I-? Y-you're not even looking!"

"The rear one." He stacked one of his eggs slowly on top of the other, and released the top one to balance them there. " _Mata._ Again."

* * *

"Wild? Pizza!"

Nothing could get Wildcard (or any turtle, for that matter) into a kitchen faster than 'Pizza,' and she all but flew out of the woodwork to tackle Sandro upon the shell. "Cheese!" she demanded ferociously.

"Where did you get to?" he laughed.

"I bothered Leo," she beamed with her chin atop his head.

"Excellent," Donatello approved.

"I think you're going to have to level-up his _Hashi_ next time, though," she explained as Sandro let her ride on him to the table. "Something tells me you guys all avoided your bridge exercises like the plague and he took his as a personal challenge from his sensei. He was squatting lotus-style on one foot, and stacking two eggs on the tip of a single chopstick when I left him."

Mikey and Donatello glanced at one-another over an ocean of cheese-laden pies. "Sounds like Leo," they agreed in unison.

"We should probably let him out early," Mikey felt a little guilty as he pushed one pie to Sandro and another to Wild. Wild got Sandro's and Sandro had to settle for Wild's; fortunately they were identical, it had just been a matter of which one arrived first. "I'm not even sure he technically lost that fight."

"Isn't six hours of isolation normal for him anyway?" Wild wondered into her first mouthful of pizza. Sandro paused and eyed her knowingly.

Donatello was quiet a moment but then sighed dramatically, threw down a wash-cloth with a smack, and stalked off to the exercise room. Sandro reached over and patted Wild on the head.

Afterwards, Leo's look of absolute innocence whilst he sat at the table belied the break-neck speed at which he'd catapulted into the room and taken his chair. He did, however, wait very patiently with his hands in his lap, and did not start eating until Donatello had followed him back in and served himself, which seemed very sweet.

By contrast: Wildcard had already stolen two pieces from Sandro, and Sandro presently head her in a headlock and was dangling a slice just out of her reach. Though Wild and Sandro talked to one-another just fine, so maybe the world could use a few more nudges from them once in awhile.


	47. Voluntary Vulnerability

"We don't know how long uncle Leo was spying on us, or what conversations he might have overheard," Sandro mentioned in a low voice as the two children scrubbed pizza sauce off their faces and hands in the bathroom sink. "You've told me some pretty private stuff."

"That is the most impressive bathtub I have ever seen," Wildcard commented, temporarily sans bandanna because it had gotten pulled off during the food fight. "It's like a Jacuzzi and a public fountain had a baby."

"Turtles, Wild. Turtles in a filthy sewer. Focus!" Sandro rotated her head back to the sink, and then grabbed a washcloth to wipe her orange-streaked face off himself. "Aren't _you_ worried?"

"I dunno, I'm a little confused," his companion chattered as Sandro picked stray cheese out of her bangs with a wrinkle of his nose and flicked it into the trash can. "I bothered him during _Hashi_ to see if he'd confront me with any ominous warnings, but instead he acted like I wasn't even _interesting_."

"Yeah, _that's_ not a thing." Sandro frowned and glanced towards the doorway with a shrewd gleam in his eyes Wildcard always found arresting. "My uncle ought to have been curious or even wary about what my new best friend is like. Instead he hasn't asked either of us even a single question. Like he already knows."

"Well _Donatello_ didn't look like Leo said anything shocking to him, did he?" Her brother agreed but looked no less concerned. "So maybe Leo just doesn't know as much as he thinks?"

"He's at least seen you use those knives; D'ya catch how quick he signed himself up to tutor ya?" She had. "You maybe don't appreciate it yet, but my uncles have never trained anyone but me and my mother. So it's weird that Leo's first act on meeting ya was to commandeer your time in the dojo."

"I got the vibe he had an ulterior motive," Wildcard murmured, and Sandro glanced knowingly to her. "Like I was a potentially dangerous situation he wanted to stake a claim in resolving. Maybe he's keeping stuff to himself because he doesn't want to worry anyone unnecessarily? He seems to care a lot about you, despite being very reserved in expressing it."

Sandro thought on this, and then stepped into Wildcard's personal space that he might gather her slowly to himself and curl his shoulders about her. She tucked her head under his chin, and Sandro pulled in a deep breath to ground them both. There was something magical or maddening in his companion's willingness to derive _security_ from his embrace; something that rendered him unshakable instead of meek. He sank gratefully back on his heels with her clasped tightly to his collarbone, eyeing that bathroom door and contemplating his relatives. "Don't panic," he told her eventually, chafing fingers warmly up and down the length of her spine. "If uncle Leo thought you were 'dangerous,' he'd have already done something."

"I don't even know how to tell when I'm panicking," Wild huffed defeatedly. "I just suddenly end up on top of tall buildings."

"Well this just in: I've issued a temporary ban on 'advanced shenanigans' until next we meet," Sandro reported authoritatively and she giggled. "Your heart's hammering."

"Nawww, that's not anxiety," she drawled, "it's just cause you're so handsome."

He barked a laugh. "Yeah, _sure_."

"What! You don't know you're handsome?"

"I'm a bald, _lipless_ , off-colored, reptilian-"

"Awmigawd, Sandro, you and your whole family are breathtakingly good-looking, muscular, and tall. Shame on you, don't undermine yourself that way." She snaked a hand out from within the hug to tap his nose in admonition. "Always be your own biggest fan. Like me!"

His cheeks heated but he gave a smaller and more genuine chuckle, because there was something pleasurable in listening to her mixed praise and bravado, regardless of whether it was true. "If you say so." He gave her a squeeze. "Kudos on getting Leo out of _Hashi_ , by the way. Why'd ya do it?"

"Donnie and Mikey add up to legendary chef status, I couldn't in good conscience let anyone miss out on that nine-cheese pizza. A little reverse psychology and a spritz of guilt-mongering go a long way, don't they! "

Sandro looked down at her and raised a brow. "I don't think you even like Leo. Don't forget I'm the one that's seen your usual reaction to authority figures."

She stuck her tongue out with a big shrug and confessed: "Your uncle Leo came off about as interesting as dry cardboard. Not even any colorful mold to ooh and ahh over!"

"You are a wretchedly mean little gremlin, you know that? That turtle deserves your _respect_." She giggled mischievously. He ruffled her hair fondly and finally helped tie her bandanna back on. "Alas, you're a lost cause. C'mon Miss Crazy Pants, let's go tap Mikey for dance lessons."

* * *

Leo had been forced to abandon two separate cups of tea that morning, one owed to a spar and another owed to _Hashi._ The third cup, thank goodness, had successfully been consumed and now sat empty beside his three-fingered hand.

Wild and Sandro were packing her up to leave at her usual time when they found Leo and Donatello pouring over a lattice of maps strewn across the kitchen table. The two older turtles were planning out patrol routes which suggested, if Wild was reading the situation right, that Leo might soon be home more often.

Leonardo certainly wore an expression of displeasure suited for watching his scheduled hours dwindle, and she imagined he was plagued by sensations of slothfulness or even negligence of civic duty. Well! Wild was proud to say _she_ had no 'Donnies' in her life, no one who could force her to change herself! Even her own father was more of an _enabler_ than a force of restraint—hehe!—encouraging her to pursue whatever interested her!

Though... _honestly speaking_ , wasn't Donnie the best person to be dragging Leo through all this? Purple Turtle was himself a workaholic, and would sympathize with Leo's compulsion to devote all of his waking hours to service. Plus... wasn't this change going to be good for everyone...? For Leo he kept glancing towards Donatello, who really did look like he'd wanted to propose all these changes for ages, and there in his brother's enthusiasm, Blue Turtle seemed to find a repeated reassurance that this really was the right thing to do.

Hmm.

If Donatello's eyes were mahogany brown, and Michelangelo's were baby blue sapphires, than Leonardo's eye color could only be described as a cobalt or a dark jean blue, because they were less saturated than his mask, more gray. Where Michelangelo liked to dress a little 'hip hop,' and Donatello's paneled armor and electronics gave him the appearance of a casual cyberpunk samurai, Leonardo seemed to feel traditional Japanese cottons made for the best everyday ware. In fact, Leo looked to be the most modestly dressed family member present, beating out even Sandro for most articles of clothing donned. Right? Oh, yup, he was even wearing soft-soled tabi instead of going barefoot like everyone else (and weren't turtle feet and hands just the most interesting things to look at, by the way?).

Sandro cuffed her gently upside the head and she jumped and blinked wide at him. "Staring," her brother whispered, amused. "Not everyone finds it as flattering as you intend."

 _Doh! Mistakes were made!_

"Phew!" Mikey called from the hallway with a sigh. "That was a much-needed shower, I was _ripe_. Don~nie! I like, think I'm almost _rusty_ at dancing! How crazy horriblez is that?"

Wildcard was only vaguely aware Sandro had gone very still as she turned about with a smile and a laugh. "You're still light years better than-!" Words caught in her throat, and her jaw drooped in dumbstruck awe. She glanced at Sandro, who looked torn somewhere between neutral disbelief and outright horror, and then back to Mikey. Maybe if she just didn't say anything...

Leo was the one who caught onto their silence first, and lifted his head. His eyes widened. "Hamato Michelangelo!" Blue Turtle shouted for the first time since she'd met him. "You are not wearing _pants_!" Donatello seized up and raised his head with a quick snap.

"I'm not wearing anything yo, what's the diff? Should I go get some elbow and knee pads?" Orange Turtle drawled lazily, confirming once and for all that the turtles had not always felt clothing to be normal or necessary.

"We have an under-aged, female guest, _you idiot_!" Donatello exploded.

"What? Bro, chiiilllll, we weren't wearing much more than our shells when we first met April, so—"

"Do you really want my little sister to start hittin' on you!?" Sandro demanded with both hands clawed in the air. "Because this is how you'll get her to hit on you!" And since Wild always had Sandro's back, she supported his assertion by putting both fingers to her mouth and whistling a shrill catcall.

Mikey paused mid-facial expression, frowned, thought on this, and was silent for several long blinks. "Ohhhhhh." He turned himself about. "Yeah that's not right, I'm gonna go get some pants. Sorry Mini!"

"No problem, Sunshine!" she crowed spiritedly after him. "I won't even mention how cute and chubby your tail is, or how you have really nice thighs!"

" _Totally sorry, Mini...!_ " Mikey wailed back to her, doubtless having flashbacks to an overprotective father pulling a knife on him. Poor Mikey.

Wildcard cackled like a hyena. Two other adult turtles didn't look nearly so thrilled, but surely had to admit that Mikey was technically right, right? Hell, clothing was so complicated to fit about their shells, they'd all frolicked naked around April all childhood without comment or incident, until a frustrated _Raphael_ (of all people?) had taken up needlework to solve the problem!

Wildcard elbowed Sandro and waggled her brows. Sandro glared at her, silently warning she was _not_ to bring up she'd seen _him_ naked too, during the hurricane. At last Leo heaved an exasperated sigh, and though Donnie looked very irritated he did loosen up a bit.

" _I_ will take her back topside," Blue Turtle said, and both Wildcard and Sandro went quiet and tense. "It will keep me from further admonishing an ultimately guileless Michelangelo, and I can lecture _her_ about remaining unseen as she leaves the sewers."

"A _lecture_!? Wait, why am I being punished for Mikey!? Gosh darn it I really am _Minimeme_!"

* * *

The walk home was ten thousand times more awkward than a naked turtle could ever be, and eerily quiet.

"Hey, so Mikey's _usually_ oblivious, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. He meant no harm!" she decided to try break the silence. "See what I did there? Mentioned a tail?"

Leo didn't twitch, alter in facial expression, say anything, or otherwise react to the fact that she'd spoken in any detectable way.

There had been a hundred pounds of bone and chitin plating protecting Mikey from indecent exposure. By contrast, there was nothing but _air_ between Wildcard and this stoic ' _family leader'_ who didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. What was she to say to him? Leo was exactly the sort of person she liked to try and make _angry_ for no particular reason.

So why _not_ try to annoy him? Maybe she was nervous? No, worse: she'd grown begrudgingly curious about what really went on under that thick shell of his, which was as good as _admitting_ that she felt he was more complicated than he let on, and that seemed an undeserved praise to give to someone so incredibly _boring_.

But it was too late: Wildcard had been struck by the crazy and nagging ideathat Leo might be smart.

Not like Donatello, obviously; and either his emotional-IQ was rock bottom or else he'd lived in some kind of self-inflicted misunderstanding with regards to what it meant to provide for one's family. Still, instead of kicking him in the shin and demanding he laugh at her jokes, Wildcard found herself tense, quiet, and leery about him. She reached into her hoodie pocket and started fiddling with her switchblade. Open, closed, open, closed, open, closed.

"You mentioned Karai to me," the turtle startled her out of her thoughts, "because you wanted to know if I thought you were anything _like_ her."

Wildcard stared up at him, spooked. She'd asked one tiny question during the _Hashi_ , and he'd looked nothing more than startled (and perhaps a little bitter) to hear the woman's name spoken aloud. Now he'd somehow deduced her motive? She just couldn't get a read on this turtle, and her uncertainty made her blurt the worst possible thing: "Well _am_ I?"

"Not particularly. Though by staging the comparison, you might leave people wondering why _you_ think it ought to be made."

Why? Because Wildcard and Karai shared at least one thing: They were both adopted daughters of archvillains. Wildcard's interest in knives and explosives had come from _somewhere_ , and what Donatello was willing to overlook in favor of Sandro's happiness might not have escaped Leonardo. The 'small detail' that Joker had retired and turned over a new leaf would probably be lost on most people, because his legacy had been far too loud for anyone to ever forgive.

Leonardo paused at the base of a ladder leading up into the chosen manhole. "Before you go, I wish to tell you two things." She turned to him with a little trepidation. "The first is that every time you go up from or come down into this sewer, you must be extremely careful not to be seen. It will only take a single instance of a Foot informant watching you come safely into an out of our domain, and then you will have a bright target painted upon you forever after. You do not want the most skillful mafia ninjas in the city hunting you and your family down to use as bait."

Alright, that made some sense, and it didn't even proc her into insisting she could defend herself. "And the second?" she asked warily.

"Notify your Aikido instructor that you are quitting, rather than going delinquent on her a second time." And with that eerily perceptive instruction aired, he turned to depart. As if in afterthought, he added: "Ninjitsu lessons start two hours before the sun leaves the sky. If you would like to come, even to watch, you must comport yourself accordingly." Then he headed back the way they'd came, leaving Wildcard to stare unnerved after his silent footsteps.

When was the last time she'd displaced a manhole cover on her own? It had been awhile. But if Leo knew she was strong enough to remove one and hadn't gallantly offered to do so himself (like even Mikey always would have), then he must have seen she could manage things. A chill crawled slimy along her skin, because this turtle had watched her _for months_ , over an unknown quantity and quality of interactions, and she'd never once caught a whiff of his presence. Plus this callous attitude he'd just lobbed at her felt strange, and didn't line up with the graceful way he'd quipped about her footwork on first meeting.

Troubled by what to make of him, and wondering if she'd ruined everything by saying something she oughtn't've, Wildcard chafed her arms and took in a slow, shaky breath. _Just think about Sandro. Just think about how you're going to see him tomorrow and give him his birthday present._ That helped, because if there was anything Wild was sure of in all this, it was that she loved her 'brother' (and probably Michelangelo, too).

She released her switchblade and started up the ladder.

* * *

Michelangelo had dressed himself and looked to be on the receiving end of a snarky, Sandro-and-Donatello tag-team when Leonardo returned to the den. That didn't stop him from petulantly whining that, "It's _my_ job to walk her home," as Leo eased the front door shut behind him and changed from outdoor shoes to indoor one.

"You've lost outside privileges for the day," Donatello sassed with a gentle smack upside the head. "Go make dinner, _Barbarian-chan_." Mikey heaved a tremendously dramatic sigh and sulked off to do so. Doubtless their food would all end up miserably scrambled and lumped into frowny faces upon their plates.

"Donnie, there is something I must know," Leo said as he came up to help Donatello put away maps and charts from the kitchen table. "How in the name of all our ancestors, adopted and otherwise, did you manage to get Michelangelo to remember numbered plans?"

That turned Donatello's scowl into a chuckle. "I didn't. Mikey picks the numbers." Leo raised a brow and glanced to Orange Turtle, who stuck out his tongue and fist-pumped, delighted enthusiasm for life successfully restored just as quickly as it had vanished. "Yes. There is no plan forty-one, nor a plan forty-three, but there are seven different plan forty-twos, few of which have anything to do with one another." Donatello shrugged. "I can remember arbitrary numbers up to seventeen digits long and Mikey can remember anything that make sense to Mikey. One day I realized I wasn't playing to our respective strengths."

"I'm allowed to make up plans, too!" Mikey bounced, and surely their food was now safe from unnecessary dreariness. "I just have to prove I can remember their numbers!"

"It's true," Donatello admitted a little smugly. "Mikey can add any plan, no matter how stupid, to the codex. I've agree to remember anything he can remember, so long as he gives it unique identification. Plan one thousand, two hundred and fifty three involves lobbing a grenade, holy item, and/or fish at the enemy and shouting Monty Python quotes."

"We are The Knights Who Say... 'Ni!'" Mikey agreed.

Leonardo leaned back in deeply appreciative silence for a moment, that he might better soak in this tremendous revelation.

* * *

"I met Leo!" Wildcard exclaimed as she flung herself over the back of her father's couch like she was a towel out drying on a clothesline. "He'd known about the visits and had gotten steadily more and more offended everyone thought they were being _so sneaky_ around him! He sprung a confrontation with Donnie today! And it was really cute and emotions-heavy! There was a tickle-fight!"

"Oh _my_. Would I be right to assume anything involving tickle-fights must have gone well?" her father asked over his crossword puzzle.

"Gee, I _think_ so," Wild shoved herself back to her feet, incredibly puzzled. "It sounds like he's 'in' with the plan, but I just can't seem to figure him out. And usually I'm very good at figuring people out! I know right away whether they like or don't like me, and I know why, and I can deduce—like—their whole psychiatric history leading up to their present state of feeling! With him: Nadda, I keep drawing blanks."

"Well what was your _overall_ impression of him, without delving into his feelings towards you?" Joker inquired as he penned in 'anthrax' to what appeared to be an intrigue, assassination, and subterfuge-themed crossword puzzle.

Wild went to the cupboards to find a dawntime snack, and encountered some strawberries with whipped cream just waiting for her. Amazing! She stole them at once! "Honestly?" she took a moment to think on the matter of Leo. "You wanna know who he reminds me of? Batman. He's like a Batman entree with an extra side of white knight, elite ninja training, and emotional constipation."

Joker furrowed his brow. "So he's Batman with an extra side of... Batman?"

"Holy Toledo, he's more Batman _than Batman_ ," she agreed with heavy and dramatic exasperation as she vaulted the couch to sit and eat her food. "That's exactly it, you've hit the nail on the head. Except," she raised a hand and tilted her head to face her bemused father, "he's got a healthy serving of Shaolin Monk somewhere in there, too. I think his daily schedule is primarily made up of meditating halfway to the astral plane, and beating up mafia thugs who are harassing old ladies."

"Batman, a Shaolin Monk, and... a boyscout?"

"Oh _man_ , that's not even the gender of scout that sells ultra delicious cookies," Wild lamented.

"Yeah that's a pity, I really miss Tag-A-Longs... and there's gotta be crack cocaine hidden in those Grasshopper Cookies, I swear, those things go like lightning. It's hard to get door-to-door girlscout saleskids stopping on by when you live in a warehouse and/or the slums..." He gave a mock sniffle, and Wildcard patted his arm, _There there._ "Oh! I got the job, by the way. The bartending job?" She gave him a hi-five and a whoop! "And the woman down the street—the one who made us calzones—she's having a tupperware party next Friday."

"Um, are we gonna go? We'd look like normal people almost, wow!"

"I'm thinking on it, I'm thinking on it. You'd have to be up at a normal hour, I'm not going by myself! This whole 'having-friends' thing, it's still icky and weird to me." He shuddered and pretended to wipe the imaginary rainbows and stardust of friendship off himself, and she laughed. "Alright, alright, back to your problem: I sensed misgivings in your voice when you were speaking about this 'Leo.' He worries you?"

"Well not anymore than any of them ever did, exactly," she sighed. "But Sunshine and Donnie at least make sense to me, so that makes me feel secure I at least know where I'm 'at' with them. Not having a firm read on Leonardo is kinda freaking me out. I can't figure out whether I ought to be walking the straight and narrow, or whether I ought to be teasing him mercilessly for that stick up his ass."

"I... strongly suspect you have no idea how to walk the straight and narrow," Joker commented. "So that plan's out. But here's my advice, since you're obviously going along with Plan Befriend All the Turtles no matter how scary it gets: Pick something to go off of, and stick to it. Either you decide you want him to like you, or you decide you _don't like him_ and want to join his siblings in teasing him; either way your goal is to establish _a relationship_ , not attain a perfect functional model of how he thinks. Your exact flavor and color tends to change a bit depending on who you're talking to, and so of course you get antsy when you don't know where you stand. But antsy-you is a little, ehm... _insane_."

And if Gotham's Joker was telling her that, it was probably true. Her mouth widened in a thin, amused line. "Well then. Thank you for that diagnosis, doctor."

Her father patted her leg. "It's what I'm here for." She giggled and crawled over to snuggle into him, and shared with him some of her strawberries. "We'll head out to the camp grounds just as soon as you get home tomorrow, by the way. You can nap in the car, but I figured disturbing your nocturnal sleep schedule was a good way of turning you diurnal for the wild outdoors. Make sure you pack enough clean underwear, and I got you a swim suit just in case. It's sitting on your dresser."

"Ooh-hoo, yes sir! Where we headed for that, by the way? Upstate New York? Pennsylvania?"

"Massachusetts, actually."

* * *

The sun was still in the sky when Wildcard approached the Hamato Lair on her lonesome. She still didn't feel like she knew what she was doing, and anxiety tickled up and down across her skin. Call her crazy, but maybe she just didn't want to dial 'manipulation' all the way up to max throttle with any turtles...

She was still far from the front doorstep when two robotic turrets deployed out of hatches on either side of the sewer, each equipped with a green rangefinder laser. _Uh oh._ Well, given what she knew of Donatello, it made sense for the Lair to have some kind of automated defense system... but since her future wasn't filled with bullet holes she decided she'd just stay where she was at.

Neither turret seemed to fully deploy, and both froze in a sort of unusual heading. Then the rangefinder lasers turned off, and each folded back into the hatch from which it had come.

Wildcard took a hesitant step forward, and then another, and another. Hmm! It looked like someone (Donatello?) had checked the surveillance cameras and disabled the turrets for her. She skipped forward, peered curiously at where the turrets were secreted, and then hurried past to find the entryway. The door was already open when she arrived, and Michelangelo greeted her at the stoop.

"Mini! Le Gasp! Have I lost walking-to-and-from-home privileges permanently!?"

"What!? No!" she laughed. "I should have called you, I'm sorry, I just wanted to see if I could find here on my own." In actuality, she'd been waffling over her options like a politician. "It was a self quiz, sometimes I don't pay enough attention!"

"I know the feeling." He ushered her in. "Why so early?"

"Leo sort of invited me to Ninjitsu practice," she explained.

Donatello raised a brow from the kitchen. "He _did?"_ This was clearly the first either of them had heard of it, and apparently it was one thing for Sandro to 'tutor' her in basic kata and quite another for Leonardo himself to invite her to lessons. "Well he and Sandro are in the dojo, if you'd like to join them."

"I even brought my practice _Gi_ ," she said. "Don't tell Mikey, he'll laugh at how cute and harmless I look in it." Orange Turtle ruffled her hair and the top of the bandanna with one giant three-fingered hand. "I'll go change in the bathroom. Scuse me!"

She didn't see it, but both Purple and Orange peered curiously after her as she disappeared down the hallway, and then shared a baffled look with one another. "Yo, do you think Leo...?" Mikey hazarded, before dismissing the idea with, "Nahhhh."

* * *

Their 'mornings' (dusk, if topside) always began with a thorough stretch and warm up, mostly to prevent unnecessary strain to the joints and hands. Sandro looked eager to finish these preliminary exercises quickly, and Leo wondered if it was because he was nervous about spending an extended weekend with his parents. Thus far, Leo had yet to hear anyone set a definitive time table for when he'd be coming clean to them about anything.

But almost as if the boy had read his mind, Sandro broke the silence: "I don't want to tell Mom and Ra- _Dad_ about Wildcard over my birthday, but I think it makes sense to talk to them the week afterward."

Leo looked to him in surprise, and wondered if he'd brought this up with Donnie just yet, or if he'd only sensed Leo's own restlessness with the subterfuge and feared being exposed prematurely. "Will you be ready?" he asked, to make sure the boy knew they were all on the same side.

"No," Sandro said. "But the longer I wait, the harder it's going to be to explain why I kept her secret from them. I don't want my parents getting upset with Donnie for undermining them or anything."

"Donatello is an adult and can take care of himself," Leo replied. "However I commend your decision to speak with them earlier as opposed to later. May I tell you an analogy?" Sandro nodded. "Very well. If we were out in the world, lacked a shovel, and required a latrine, Donatello would reverse-engineer steel-forging, melt down scrap iron, and create a shovel for us. I, by contrast, would just make-do digging with a stick and my bare hands. Now of course his technique would theoretically be more efficient if anyone could hold their bladder long enough for him to finish... Mine is ultimately more prudent, at least for the first six or seven latrines."

Sandro smiled a little. "Yeah. I... I understand my bigger issues with Dad and Mom are actually a separate can of worms from telling them about Wildcard's existence. I have to be _prudent_ about her, or they'll get mad they were kept in the dark. Anyway, it doesn't seem so impossible to tell them anymore, not with everyone helping me."

"We have your back, Sandro," Leo agreed. "But take the time to warm up _thoroughly_ , I do not want to explain a sprained ankle when we have so much planned over the weekend."

Sandro startled. "'Planned?' What do we have planned?"

"You'll find out soon enough." Leonardo paused, frowned, and then turned towards the entryway to the dojo. There, peering nervously about the corner, was a small someone in a white bandanna whom Leo had been very nearly _certain_ would not show up, not with how cold he'd been, and certainly not with friendlier tutors about. But there she was, usually loud but now rendered quiet, wild but now docile; completely out of her element, and looking very much afraid of him and what he thought of her, uncertain whether she was welcome or not.

 _'Well the kid is signalling loudly on all frequencies,'_ Mikey had said, and now all the voluntarily chosen vulnerability in those wide hazel eyes suggested he'd been right. _'She's hiring to fill an adult-shortage!'_

"It seems we have a second student, today," Leo observed, startling his nephew. "Come in. _Hairu_. You can join us for warm ups, but you must sit still while I am instructing Sandro in more advanced kata."

Her little face brightened immediately, and she hurried in to take her place upon he dojo carpets. "Hey Yin!" she whispered, to Sandro's befuddled but delighted, "Hey Yang."


	48. Mercurial

Going 'easy' on Sandro had made his nephew feel neglected, which meant it was time to switch directions and pick up the pace. Leonardo demonstrated a demanding sequence of exercises intended to challenge the boy's agility. Sure enough, though Sandro stumbled and faltered, an eager motivation alighted upon the boy's countenance, and he accepted critiques and corrections with gusto. This regiment once more did proper credit onto his abilities.

Leo stepped back to observe and nod his satisfaction. Sandro was Raphael's student, not Leonardo's, but Leo had been on assistant training duty under Raphael's supervision since the boy had been only shin high. He knew how hard Sandro _could_ be pushed, and mastering these kata would be difficult while falling a stone's throw short of being stressful.

Good. This would be a good thing to bring up to his brother over the weekend.

Leo turned to peer at where an oft-called 'loudmouth' had waited in uncharacteristic silence. She was not bursting at the seams with impatient energy; Her usual mantle of skeptical sarcasm had gone absent, replaced by wide-eyed curiousity and a deceptively shy smile. She seemed young in that light, no larger than Sandro had been at seven or eight.

He frowned as he pondered her natural weaknesses and ulterior motives. She'd marked him for a threat, that much was clear, and this looked like a show of subservience in an effort to keep him placated. For this girl was anything but _demure_.

* * *

The worst part of being a wily fox came when you wanted to drop your act and be honest. No matter how quaky you felt in your bones, or how much you put your heart out on your sleeve, you'd never be able to produce enough evidence to really earn your innocence back. People looked at you differently.

Case in point: The disapproving stare Leo levied on her now was a sharp reminder that the only reason Wildcard was even allowed in his home or in his dojo was because of how badly Sandro needed a companion. To that end she was like the scrapings from the bottom of a barrel: acceptable only because he lacked alternative options, if nevertheless fulfilling an important purpose.

That said, it looked like Leo only disapproved of what he perceived as an attempt to alter his objectivity. If she backed up and stayed at arms distance, (and didn't spontaneously turn evil), it looked like Blue Turtle would stay neutral towards her. So he'd let her prove herself to Donnie, April, and Raphael, doing her and Sandro a huge favor. And hey! Donnie had warmed up to her over the last few days! Right?

So she wasn't entirely glum when Leo stepped up to her and gestured that she should stand. "Show me your stance from yesterday," he told her, so she scrambled to comply. He stepped about her, toed her rear foot to the side, and pushed her shoulder back a few degrees. A near-stranger was grabbing at her, but she tried not to be twitchy about it. "Your center of balance is very different from Sandro's," he intoned. "You cannot directly mimic his body posture. He is top heavy; you are not."

"Then what should I do differently?" she wondered.

"Pay attention," Leonardo suggested as he realigned her shoulders a second time, and at least that answer was sort of funny and lifted her spirits.

As he finished circling her, Leo spun gracefully and effortlessly to a crouch. He reached out and took her wrists in his hands, and felt up her arms to the shoulders. Wildcard repressed the urge to stiffen, eventually got distracted by the blue color of his eyes, and then finally tucked her chin and tried to look anywhere else at all because her brain was filled with inarticulate plaque and gobblygook. He bent his elbows and placed her hands against his forearms. "Push," he instructed, and she realized he was testing her strength.

Eager to prove herself in any capacity, Wildcard rocked her weight back, dug her toes in, steeled her arms, and then threw herself against him with all her might...! But Leonardo remained where he was, crouched there on the flats of both feet, balanced and perfect and more immobile than granite. She supposed she might have gotten his arms to flex slightly, but that was it. That said, Blue Turtle did not look disappointed with his findings. He overturned her hands to inspect the wear of them.

"You are uncomfortable," Leonardo remarked astutely, even with scarcely more than a glance towards her face.

"Oh. Sort of." Sandro faltered and seemed concerned, so she added, "I'll be fine," and she might have been– had Blue Turtle not floored her by musing aloud:

"If you do not like to be touched, it would explain why Aikido lost its allure the moment your teacher first introduced joint locks and pins."

Wildcard's eyes flew open wide. Her Aikido lessons had always happened during the daytime, in a densely populated rec building, in a windowless room; and that feeling towards joint locks was something she hadn't admitted even to herself.

"Have you formally withdrawn yet?" Leonardo inquired conversationally.

"N-not yet-!" This turtle was intimidating without even doing anything intimidating!

"Then did you attend your lessons today?"

"Well, no," but that was because she'd been finishing Sandro's birthday present, which was a totally legitimate excuse!

Cobalt eyes lifted up with blandly flavored judgement. He seemed personally insulted, which didn't make any sense at all, and then stood without another word and turned away to review how Sandro's practice regiment was turning out.

 _What?_ Wildcard gaped after him in disorientation, wondering what sort of weird-ass guilt trip he'd just sent her on. He said nothing. She started fidgeting in place as excess energy slowly got the best of her. Fine! If he wanted to give her the cold shoulder, she'd just practice on her own!

"Right foot," Leo called blindly back to her when she was scarcely three steps in. "Toes out."

Something inside her snapped quite unexpectedly. "You can't even see me!" Wildcard whirled on him in a shout, for the realm of things Leo shouldn't possibly know about was growing creepily vast, he had this crazy ability to make her feel helpless, and now apparently she'd offended him by going delinquent on Ms. Jane—a reaction which obviously only made sense to hormonally constipated monks.

"What makes you believe I cannot hear you?" the 'ninjitsu master' wondered in a rhetorical tone, again without even turning to face her.

"How could you possibly hear what direction my toes are pointed!?" Wildcard's shouted, voice raw, because this game was driving her crazy. "Why do you know anything at all about my Aikido preferences, the teacher's choice in curriculum, what I struggled at, or even that I was skipping lessons!? Not even _spying on me_ could have told you that stuff!"

"You think to raise your voice to me as if I am to blame for something?" Leo wondered with a soft glance back her way. "Perhaps the fault is not mine. Perhaps it is instead _you_ who does not yet know how to listen to the world."

Wildcard fumbled, thrown off-balance by how patient his tone had been when a moment ago he'd seemed so cold and indifferent. Why the _hell_ was all of this being so difficult for her!? She looked from Leo to Sandro. Her 'brother' had stopped to watch her, but didn't know what to say to either of them. Leo deftly waved him back to his regiment; and though off-balance and more than a little concerned, Sandro nevertheless obeyed.

Ninjitsu practice continued without her.

Wild crumpled. She chafed her arms and stared bleakly at the older turtle's shell. Churning up in her belly, grew a desperate urge to say something, do something, _express_ something—somehow!—before it was too late to take back (or justify) whatever she'd done wrong. The minutes crawled by, their passage making her feel as if she was being left farther and father behind. Until, there, miserable and frantic and angry and still grasping for threads at the bottom of some psychological pit, Wildcard found a vehicle for all this confusion in the form of a quote from an old television show.

"Old man," she called timidly, "how is it that you hear these things?"

The master of the dojo lifted his head a degree, and tilted it for a brief moment as if uncertain he'd heard correctly. "Young woman," he then completed the famous banter, "how is it that you do not?"

Wildcard stared at him a moment longer. With a hard swallow past a lump in her throat, she tried going through her footwork one last time. One last _try—_ that's all she had left inside her... and when no call of 'Right foot' came, she wondered if she'd read into his reply incorrectly and, perhaps, been given up on.

* * *

Leonardo remained impassive, unmoving.

A young girl's head was pointed downward because she was trying to inspect her own footwork, and the rapid pace set by her heart and lungs had left her fairly blind and deaf to anyone else's body language. Back, leg, and neck muscles were taut where they oughtn't be, radiating tension and fear out from her blazing aura, emotions which broke around Leo's shell like a delta.

Amidst this, an unpleasant feeling tingled up under his carapace again, haunting him without criteria for resolution: unsettled, energetic, and squeezing, all filled with a directionless impulse to act, to fix, to _help_ , without outlet. It was some restless sensation stirring up dust in rooms of himself it seldom took so much effort to ignore. Leonardo closed his eyes. A moment's meditation would oust the invalid emotional response and re-balance him; He needed to be thinking clearly.

It was long overdue for Sandro to have a companion his own age, but as the boy had selected such a potentially dangerous and naturally charismatic friend, Leonardo needed to remain vigilant in case he needed to shield his nephew from making the sort of mistakes _he_ had once made.

Sensation hit him like a ghostly swat of a tail upon his shell, so real as to make him flinch, so effervescent that he did not turn about and look for a source. Old things surged up through him: nostalgia, sorrow, guilt, and things he had no name for. _S_ haken, he peered back past the curve of his shell... at where a little girl with far too many knives, a very troubled mind, and a dimly-lit origins story was out on a limb, staggering valiantly through _visibly debilitating terror_ , all in the _faintest_ hope that by doing so she might find herself _wanted_.

And he knew that was what she was doing, _knew it without a single shred of doubt_ , and knew there was no maliciousness hidden behind the goose-pimples on her skin and the distracted shamble of her worsening footwork; Her aura was far too bright to hide anything. To have pretended otherwise meant something was wrong, albeit not with _her_.

Leonardo cycled quietly through ten thousand reasons he'd been unable to tell Raphael that Sandro had bumped into a scrappy, green-eyed, street child.

* * *

"Left knee," Blue Turtle called back to her just when the long minutes of silence had grown screamingly loud. "Put more weight on your heel— _Grasshopper_."

Completely inexplicable relief crashed around her hammering heart and shivering lungs. " _Hai, Sensei_ ," Wildcard breathed, and tried to do as she'd been instructed.

Surely Leo was onto somethin' when he said she didn't know how to listen, because ninjas could sneak up on her like nobody's business, and only a premonition kept her from leaping sky high out of her skin as a large, three-fingered hand alighted gently upon the top of her head. The cobalt stare which met hers was no longer standoffish or judgmental, and instead the center brows furrowed upwards. Leonardo gave a light shake of his head.

"There is nothing for you to fear." Fingers trailed from the crown of her head to where the bandanna framed her eyes, and only then did she realize she'd been tearing up as she'd exercised, because he wiped the saline away with a very broad but surprisingly gentle thumb. "There is _nothing_ for you to fear." He repeated. Wildcard sucked in a deep breath, and nodded. His hand settled on her cheek. "Show me this kata again," he coaxed. "From the beginning."

* * *

Two hours of morning practice rolled into two and five and then two and a quarter. Being fifteen minutes late would have meant nothing coming from Donatello, Raphael sometimes did lose track of the time, and thirty minutes tardiness might as well have been baked into Michelangelo's regularly programmed schedule. But Leo? Leonardo's habits had grown as dependable as clockwork, to the point where Donatello might as well have set watches by him. For him to be _late_ warranted investigation, and that was why Donatello tiptoed down the den hallway to have a look.

Leo stood before both matching-bandanna children, telling Wildcard to _keep still please_ while instructing them both in a simple throw. Sandro had never previously had a human-sized sparring partner to practice against, and Wildcard now had a real teacher watching her motions and correcting each poorly timed breath or shaky step. Did Leo honestly plan on _training_ her in ninjitsu? Why? Her, of all people; and just like that, off the cuff? Well, both children were listening attentively to his instructions, their faces evidencing engagement. They were having fun together.

Donnie crossed his arms and leaned into the wall of the dojo threshold. A wondrous smirk crept over his mouth.

There was something different about Leo. Something in the way he steered Sandro's weight through the motions of the throw, keeping a hand on his shell to steady him. Something in the way he grew harmlessly irritated with Wildcard's attempts to practice before he'd finished his lecture, and so stepped on one of her feet with just enough weight to pin her in place. When she shoved and pushed and pulled against him an effort to fight free, Leo didn't budge. When she finally gave up and flopped onto _his_ foot to listen to him, Donatello swore his eldest brother looked just a little _smug_.

He decided not to interrupt. Instead he tiptoed back into the kitchen, where Michelangelo was trying to judge exactly when the bacon ought to be cooked to ensure maximum baconocity (or something like that).

"They'll probably be another ten or fifteen minutes," Donatello predicted.

"Yo, so like," Michelangelo was cleaning out the waffle iron almost nervously, "is he _actually_ teaching her?"

"It looks like it."

Mikey squinted at him. "...So... what's that mean?"

Donatello shook his head. "I have no idea what's going through his head."

"Yo, um, you remember who sent me to pick up Sandro during the hurricane?" Donnie glanced at him. " _Leo._ "

* * *

The children finished practice after two and a half hours, and then came stampeding into the kitchen in search of food. Mikey was prepared! He had eggs, bacon, and waffles waiting for them, and they ate like the ravenous little wolf babies they were. Leonardo followed after them at a far more (ahem!) _graceful_ pace, but spoke a verbal thanks to Mikey and Donnie as he took his plate and sat down to eat beside the little guys. Yin and Yang ribbed and teased eachother until Donatello shot them a look to imply that two 'food fights' in two days was much too many (pfft, says who?).

"Oh!" Wildcard/Minimeme abruptly exclaimed, halfway through trying to steal Sandro's last piece of bacon. "Omigod! I nearly forgot Sandro's present!" Le Gasp! _Another_ present?! She spun to Leo, who blinked down at her just as slowly as if he'd heard absolutely nothing. "That's why I didn't have time to talk to Ms. Jane, I'm sorry! It literally took me right up until the last second!" She spun to Sandro. "Wait here!" And then she'd flung herself away from the table and was hurrying through the house to find wherever she'd left her backpack. Probably in the bathroom, right?

Sandro perked up, blinked, and then called after her, "The masks weren't enough?"

"That was for both of us!" she hollered back, across a Leo who was still serenely eating his waffles. "This was specifically for you!" She hopped back into the kitchen with her things in hand, and plopped the bag temporarily into her seat.

"Wait, you-?" Sandro turned away from his food, eyes widening. "You got me something?"

"Well, not those exact words. Here, you can open it now, but don't laugh okay?"

"Why would I-? Ha!" For she'd pulled out a very crumpled mass of chaotically taped wrapping paper. "Did you, um, package it yourself by any chance?"

Minimeme scowled at him. "It wasn't square-shaped, I didn't have a box, and I figured I'd done the rest from scratch—so why not? Look if you don't like it I'll just buy you something."

"Wait, did you _make_ me something?"

Now quite red-faced, Mini only held the bundle out to him.

Sandro peered at her, puzzled, but then took the bundle and began pulling it apart. Donatello came over and offered the kitchen scissors as Sandro attempted to free it from, like, _tourniquets_ of tape. That helped! Beneath, thye uncovered a pale, tan, carefully carved wooden body about seven inches across and curled into a vague 'C.' Its long snout and bumpy back suggested it was none-other than a crocodile.

Sandro looked incredulously up to Mini, who leaned back all _bashfully_ upon her heels and gave a shrug. "It's Lady Smiles, isn't it?" Sandro murmured. "You even gave her a pot belly."

Mini's grin reappeared, from ear to ear. "Like Crocodile Buddha!" She glanced away. "Course I know it's not very good."

"I can't believe you actually _made_ this. Normally you break things, not the other way around." (She really was Mini-Meme.) "It's beautiful, Wild."

"A-are you kidding?!" she exclaimed as if he'd just told a tremendous fib. "The arms don't match, the eyes don't line up, what even _is_ this shape right here, and when you set it down it falls onto its face instead of staying up and—"

"It's the most thoughtful thing I've ever been given," Sandro rasped. "Really. You know, for someone so chronically loud and abrasive you've got one heck of a sweet spot."

Mini blinked rapidly and recoiled as if she needed to think about that, but Sandro was totally a step ahead of her already and stood up to squeeze her off her feet in a big hug so warm that she melted trustingly all over his shoulders.

Leo leaned near Donatello and quipped in Japanese, "Apparently the things you make by hand for him are far too polished-looking to qualify as thoughtful."

Was that a joke? It _was._ Donatello grinned and gave him a hefty pat upon the shell. Mikey broke out laughing, but then glanced between his brothers and the children, curiously confusificated as he tried to add two and two together.

" _Kanojo wa kare no tame ni tekisetsuna nakama ni naru,_ " Blue Turtle added tonelessly with a little wave of his hand, which meant something dry and brusque like, 'She will make an adequate companion for him.' Then Leo stood and went to wash off his plate in the sink.

Michelangelo peered at his eldest brother's shell a long moment, then back at where Sandro looked to be sneaking Wildcard some sibling love to fortify her right under their noses. If Leo had no problems with Mini, then why did she look so emotionally exhausted? Hehe. She really _did_ look adorably harmless in a practice Gi.

"Are you leaving for patrol?" Wildcard asked of Leonardo as the eldest turtle headed out of the kitchen. Leo nodded, though he did not pause to address her directly, which seemed so callous, disrespectful and out of character for him that even Donnie noticed and glanced his way.

"You should leave at least two hours early today," Leo instructed as he headed back to get ready for the day. "Practice will resume Tuesday evening—Grasshopper."

" _H-Hai, Sensei_ ," answered an excited but nervous-sounding child who knew slim-to-no Japanese whatsoever.

'Ding!' went both the kettle and Michelangelo's internal thought bubble, as hot water for tea went unused and Donatello frowned in clueless puzzlement after their brother. _Oh poor sweet secretly sensitive Leo,_ Mikey's heart bled, _You're not sure we'll get to keep her, and you're scared of becoming attached._

* * *

[Author's Notes]

The television show referenced in this chapter was 'Kung Fu.' In a flashback during the show, Blind Master Po asked the main character (as a child), 'Can you hear your heartbeat? Can you hear the grasshopper beside your foot?' Afterwards, in other flashbacks, he calls the protagonist 'Grasshopper.' If you've ever wondered where 'grasshopper' comes from, there's your answer!

Feel free to correct my Japanese, if it should become necessary.


	49. Good For A Person

Something very interesting stirred Wildcard out of her melancholy.

Leonardo crossed the lair on his way out. He was dressed in a dark, close-fitting synthetic catsuit that sported traces of a _happi_ jacket over top, sheathes for both katana, and black _jika tabi_ up to the knees. Blue Turtle said a brief farewell to everyone present _except_ Wildcard, of course, but fortunately she was too busy staring at him to notice.

A hand waved in front of her face; A _three-fingered_ hand. _Oh no!_ Utterly mortified, Wildcard twisted around to find that it was _Donatello_ , and not Sandro, who had caught her in the act. _Egads!_

"Well it's good to see you haven't changed," Purple Turtle remarked jovially as the front door swung shut on the heels of Leo's departure. "I admit I became worried when you almost sounded _respectful_."

"Uh," Wildcard drew a blank, because she had absolutely not been checking out Leo, no sir, not even if that catsuit somehow looked more revealing than butt-nakedness, which shouldn't have even been possible (It was so silky and _sleek_...!) "Forty-two!" she panicked.

Donnie actually laughed! "Don't worry so much, Ana." He patted her on the head and put a few more flapjacks on her plate, and if that wasn't a demonstration of affection then Wildcard didn't know what was. A warm happy sensation rose up in her belly to temporarily stave off insecurity.

"I'm going to leave a ton of butter in his marmalade," she confessed her dastardly scheme.

"Aha. I see you too appreciate the fine arts of passive-aggression," Donatello purred. "Allow me to share with you my expertise, and make sure you get a few flecks of blueberry in there while you're at it. He'll have a thundercloud over his head _all week_."

* * *

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Michelangelo called, hurrying out of The Turtle Lair after his eldest brother. "Need to talk to you!" Leo turned about with a curious tilt of his head as Mikey skid into him.

"What is the matter?"

"It's about Mini," Mikey scolded gently, because Leo had been through quite a lot of scolding recently. "You need to cut it out, bro."

Leonardo frowned. "You wish for me to discontinue instructing her in Ninjitsu?"

"No!" Mikey widened his eyes innocently. "No, I actually thought that was a great idea. Why'd your head jump there first, yo? Scared of losing your _new student_ , maybe?"

Leo's nose wrinkled and his expression soured. "I am remaining neutral on the matter," he said.

"You're waffling between hot and cold so fast it might as well be a Katy Perry song!" Mikey snickered. "Are you a _Ninjitsu Instructor_ or a _Juvenile Parole Officer_? Cause the mixed messages are causing collateral damage!"

Leo raised a hand to dismiss Michelangelo for nonsense, but he paused at the top of a breath. Mikey leaned back and eyeballed his older brother expectantly. Leo furrowed brows at him. "'Damage,'" he repeated, seeking an explanation.

"Ha! See, I knew you cared!" Leo always did. "All her armor's down, bro; She's waiting on you to set the _rules,_ to tell her what your relationship to her _is._ "

"The uncle of a friend," Leo reminded him, tone reproachful. "Whom she has only just met. There _is_ no relationship."

"N'aww, see, that's the awkward place _I'm_ in," Mikey set up mischievously. " _You're_ her _sensei._ "

Blue Turtle lifted his chin uncertainly and Mikey knew he'd hit a nerve. "She attaches no especial significance to that honorific."

"Except that nobody _else_ can get her to even say it! Just ask Sandro: You must have made one heck of an _impression!_ "

"I corrected sloppy footwork over a two-hour period of time," Leonardo distanced himself with a firm and even hand. "Nothing more."

"Pfft, you wanna know what I think?" Rhetorical question; Mikey would be telling him either way! "I think you've been _nervously looking forward to_ _meeting her_ since she and Sandro first bumped into one another!" Leo looked to him incredulously. "Yeah, that's right! Cause you sent _me_ to intercept Lil Bro during the hurricane! You _knew_ he musta been with her. You were hoping I'd find out and break the news to Donatello better than you could!"

Leo flushed guiltily. _Whoop-whoop! Three points!_ Blue Turtle glanced away and sawed his beak together before rephrasing the accusation but ultimately failing to deny anything: "Betimes I realized Sandro would not come clean to us himself, the two children had bonded. I did not want to be the one to cost him his 'companion.'"

"So it's all got nothing to do with you running across a teenage, _ambidextrous,_ pointy vigilante child, and suddenly feeling this intense and unexplained urge to _mentor somebody_?"

"Michelangelo, this is not some comic story! That child has a very troubled moral compass, no respect for authority, and a nearly pathological aversion to authenticity! Yes, that does sound like it requires _quite a lot of guidance_ , but I am hardly in a position to offer any!"

"Dude, when do you ever pass up the chance to lecture? It's like your lifelong hobby or something!"

Leo didn't even dignify that with an answer. "Look, I saw how easily she bonded with _you_ , and my misgivings were partially alleviated. I think you should be the one to tutor her in the future–"

"–You can't just call dibs on a _person_ and then change your mind and try to lob them off on someone else!" Mikey protested. "How's she supposed to feel about that!?"

"I didn't-! _Listen_ to me!" Leo was growing flustered on the last threads of his patience. "My intuition on such matters has failed us before to serious consequence, and I am concerned she may yet prove–"

"–'Failed us?'" Mikey reeled. "What?"

Leo broke off into silence, as if equally startled by what had just fallen out of his mouth,

"Oh. Holy crap, that makes perfect sense. That little girl triggered every uber guardian hero instinct you have," Mikey stepped forward wondrously, "didn't she? But you're so hard on yourself, and so bad at forgiving yourself, that all you can think about, cycling through your head over and over and over again, is what happened the _last time_ you believed a person was _worth saving_ —"

"—Do not compare her to _Karai_!" Leo denied in icy, clipped fury.

Mikey raised both brows.

A moment passed in silence, and Leo's ire drained to pensiveness. He gave a small snort. "Loud, reckless, impulsive, violent, amoral, paranoid, disobedient, moody," he muttered with a shake of his head. "If anyone that reminds me of Raphael." He turned. "Is there anything else you want to theorize at before I depart?

Michelangelo frowned. "You know, there's only so many people who are ever going to walk into our lives, but each time someone does it's like it's supposed to happen. Like there's a _reason_. Maybe taking in a student would be good for you bro, I dunno. Made Donnie smile, that's for sure. But giving her a real role model, that would be good _for her."_

Blue Turtle stilled and did not walk away.

" _You're_ the adult, Leo. You're 'Splinter' now. I'm not saying training her would be easy, or that she'll listen to you, or that she won't let you down; But she's just a kid, and the way she's holding out through your cold shoulders is super brave of her. Like she can _sense_ you noticed her, and she's gambling every ounce of her emotional fortitude on the hope those 'grasshoppers' meant something, and that if she just _doesn't give up_ , then maybe _neither will you_. That's some wicked spiritual-grade faith, bro. Maybe she doesn't even know it yet, but I think your intuition is better than you wanna believe."

* * *

 _Dear Ms. Jane,_

 _My brother has been stuck at home on account of his skin issue, and I've decided I need to quit Aikido for the time being in order to spend time with him. He wanted me to tell you just how much it meant to him that you let us practice after hours that one day. I think he called you 'a saint.' I wanted to write you this letter as an apology, to formally withdraw from lessons, and to thank you for teaching me._ _When I think about it, I realize you're one of the only strong female role models I've ever had, and I had a lot of fun._

 _Sincerely,  
Anastasia Hamilton_

"There," Sandro said as he and Wildcard decided upon the final wording. "It's rough, but the spelling's good and it sounds liek you."

"I've never spelled my feelings so _cleanly_ before, and it's kinda creepy!" Wild admitted as she began copying the text down by hand. Hand-written was how she wanted it, cause that made it worth more.

Sandro ruffled her hair and the top of her bandana. "You okay?" he prompted.

"Not really, but I'm holding in there."

Sandro glanced at door of his room, cracked open behind them to signal to all the adults that they were behaving themselves (whatever that meant). "Wanna do throwing stars afterwards?"

She nodded. "Yeah but let me focus, I already almost dotted an 'r' and crossed an 'l.'"

* * *

The hour had grown late and it was almost time for Wild to leave. The two children stripped off practice gear alongside one another in strangely tense silence. This would be the last they saw of one another for about six whole days, but they hadn't said much of anything about it. Sandro frowned guiltily her way.

See, the shitty thing about not sneaking around topside anymore was that the two of them never got any genuine privacy. How the hell was he supposed to talk to her about her own problems with so many uncles afoot? It wouldn't be the _first_ time they'd been eavesdropped on, and Wild had way too many secrets for that.

 _Screw the excuses,_ it was like he could _smell_ the twitchiness on her. She needed him to _do_ something, to help her, to bring her back down to earth. Sandro glanced towards the dojo entrance, tossed his knee-pads aside, and then turned to push his companion backwards. He hemmed her against the wall with a hand on either side of her, and leaned near to shut out the world. "Hey," he said into the edge of her bandanna.

"Hey," she echoed quietly, dropping her arms limply to her sides and tilting her head receptively.

"Talk to me," he growled. "I ain't okay with letting you leave like this."

Wild deflated a little. "I'm acting _that_ weird?"

"Yah, ya sure are. Though you ain't the only one. Never seen Leo do that in my life, like he can't make up his damn mind." Sandro glanced at the hallway. "You realize this is gonna be the longest I'll go without seeing you since the day we _met?_ Talk to me, please."

"I feel drained," she confessed. "Which I don't understand. Nervousness normally makes me chatter like a baboon."

"Mild understatement," Sandro grumbled. "Look, I get what it's like to be out of sorts and unsure what to say. But is there something I can do to help? Ya know, aside from getting frustrated, losing my temper, and yelling at my uncle about random unrelated things, I mean."

An uncertain, almost bashful expression overtook her face. "Can... can you _squish_ me for a second?"

 _Yup._ Sandro glanced about, and then stepped into her and got an arm behind her shoulder to cradle the back of her head with his hand. He leaned into her slowly, a little nervous about just how much he weighed compared to how little she did, but she didn't protest. Her fingers curled against his plastron. He bundled his other arm around the small of her back as he leaned heavily into and over her. "Feel anchored?" he asked.

"Yeah," she whispered, and her breath tickled his collarbone as she slumped into the security of the pin. "Yeah, exactly that."

 _Good._ Idly, as they stole a couple minutes in that way, Sandro reflected that it might have been reassuring to kiss the top of her head or something like that. But of course: no lips. He sort of imagined kissing her, though, since his snout was stuffed into her hair anyway and she'd never know. Then he gathered up his thoughts, and took in a deep breath to speak. "Hey, so... Just have fun with your dad this weekend, okay?" He traced her cheekbone. "And go stargazing for real for me."

She nodded calmly into him. "I'll take pictures of all the woodland critters and suspicious trees I come across." Goodness knew what made a tree 'suspicious.' "And rocks, of course. Suspicious rocks." They were such city folk.

He grinned into her and gave her a tight squeeze. "It'll be over before you know it. Where you and your dad headed to camp, by the way? Upstate New York?"

"Upstate _Massachusetts,_ " she corrected, with a bit more energy. "I googled the camp site. Wanna see?"

* * *

"Does she _really_ have to leave two hours early?" Sandro complained as the children joined Michelangelo and Donatello in the kitchen.

"Probably for the best, at least this week," Donatello agreed. "But before you go, Ana, Mikey and I have something for you. It's on the table."

Wildcard was already staring at the table, if only because there was a bag perched upon it that looked to be stuffed with purple tissue paper. She blinked up at Donatello in surprise, and then hesitantly turned to point at the bag. Donnie nodded. Sandro raised a brow. Clearly unable to believe this was true, Wildcard hurried over to the bag, and then glanced back at them one last time. Mikey's grin must have sold her on the idea that _this was her birthday present from them_ , because a wonderful smile lit up her face. She dug out that tissue paper with gusto, and then carefully unfold what she found within.

They'd gotten her sleek, futuristic-looking arm and knee sleeves, with thin, expensive gel caps protecting the elbows and knees. Someone had even decided that they ought to be _white_ , likely to match her mask.

"Now, just in case you have any concerns, I researched the materials exhaustively to make sure they were both easy to maintain and wouldn't yellow as they aged," Donatello explained, as if the _questionable prudence_ of purchasing _white_ gear ought to have been the first thing on anyone's mind. "And they can take roughly five times as much force as the hand-me-downs you were practicing with. I wrote up a little stat sheet and put it in there for you."

Wildcard turned to peer searchingly at both older turtles. She looked down at her gifts, and then back up at them. And without another word, she hurried up and hugged Donnie's leg. Sandro thought that she might as well have been a fireworks show of cartoon purple and orange hearts, that's just how much love she managed to emit.

"Oh, um..." But Donatello didn't actually have to say anything. After all, Mikey had long ago trained him in the perception of invisible cartoon hearts, and Wildcard wasn't so terrible an interpreter of meaningful silences as one might have initially supposed, so Donnie just grew visibly content with her reaction whilst Mikey impatiently squealed, "Try em on already!" from past his elbow.

* * *

Sandro woke up to an unexpected amount of clamor about his home. He stepped out of his room and wiped sleepiness from his eyes, and blinked about in surprise to see a large number of suit cases, plastic crates filled with food, and various odd-ball objects. Why were the fishing rods out? He could smell breakfast had been made and the coffee was done, and those things were normal for this early in the morning; what was _not_ normal was for Michelangelo to be the one cooking.

"Oh good, you're up," Donatello said as he carried a very large drone helicopter over to one of the crates and eased it inside. "We need to be on the road in an hour and a half if we're to time the rendezvous just right, so eat quickly and make sure the reptiles have enough food for the weekend."

"On the _road_?" Sandro muttered, for he'd never heard such words outside of television broadcasting. "What's going on?"

"You are actually going to have to spend some time fishing with me this time," Leo remarked with an entire kayak over one shoulder. "Or my feelings will be hurt."

"A-are," Sandro sputtered, "are we _going_ somewhere?"

"Of course, Lil Bro!" Mikey hooted from the kitchen. "We wouldn't want to miss your Super Special Secret Birthday Party, would we?"

"What? _"_ Sandro breathed. " _Where?!_ "

"Uh, if we told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, duh!" Mikey cackled, and that was all the info Sandro was going to get. He turned around at a stumble to quickly get back into his room and survey the reptiles. The snakes had just eaten, but he'd need to make sure the herbivores had a heaping plateful of provisions to last them.

 _We're leaving the sewers! We're going on a trip!_ He couldn't wait to tell _Wild_ , but texting or callingher would have to wait until he was packed and all his chores were done!

* * *

Sandro had scarcely been inside the Shellraiser aside from to admire the damn thing. Ninja Mutants could travel fast by foot in concrete jungles, which meant the Shellraiser was only needed if trouble happened out in the suburbs around Jersey City or, more commonly, across the river in some part of New York. So Sandro had watched his uncles and father make use of the vehicle plenty of times for 'work,' but when was the last time they'd had an excuse to take _Sandro_ anywhere?

They did _now_. They'd deployed through their access tunnel into a decrepit old parking garage, and sped craftily out to reach the highway system. He watched the driver's side mirrors to watch as the chaotic green paint of the vehicle grew dull and silvery, because Donatello had activated a number of stealth features to make them look like a large and nondescript van.

Sandro couldn't _remember_ the last time he'd been in a car on a highway. He was so excited that he'd forgotten to call Wild before heading out. Hell, he must have looked like he had ants in his pants, because Mikey was snickering at him. "Where _are_ we going?" he finally demanded.

"You'll see when we get there," Donatello told him with an affectionate grin.

"Is anyone else going?" Holidays and birthday parties in the Hamato Household always involved a big family gathering.

"Hmm," Donatello teased, but then yielded. "Well your Grandfather and Aunt Robyn just got in from Colorado yesterday." _Yes!_ Grandpa O'Neil might have lived half a country away, but he'd never missed any of Sandro's birthdays—not one, and he always brought cool gifts! "Casey and Shadow headed up this morning, before us. Annnd, if I'm not _terribly mistaken_ , I think Michelangelo might have run into a very large, nomadic crocodile a few weeks past and gave him a invite."

" _Leatherhead's_ coming!?"

"Well see!"

"A-and my parents, right?"

Oof, that question sounded ridiculously insecure, because _of course_ his parents were coming. Raphael himself had promised! Thankfully, before Donnie could worry, a very loud and powerful engine came roaring up the highway behind the Shellraiser, prompting Sandro to twist around in surprise. Illuminated in dark green LEDs, and traveling at about a solid hundred miles an hour, a very large and armor-plated motor-cycle rocketed up alongside them. The rider, equally armor-plated and wearing a black coat that whipped in the wind behind him, eased off the gas to match their speedometer.

 _Dad._

Crackling white noise indicated that someone had activated the Turtles' comm link. "I can tell Leo's drivin'," was the first thing Raphael said. "Old ladies are passin' him by!"

The last thing Sandro expected at that moment was for Leo to suddenly veer left in an apparent attempt to hit the Shellcycle, but Blue Turtle jerked the wheel at such an incredibly sharp speed that wheels _squealed_ , and the smell of burnt rubber filled the air, horns rang out from concerned vehicles across the highway, and for a few seconds the only reason Sandro knew no fatal motorcycle crash had just occurred was because Raphael was laughing so incredibly hard over the comm link.

"Missed, _Lame-o-nardo_!" a Red Turtle roared. "Ah see your aim hasn't gotten any better!"

" _Both of you!"_ Donatello hissed as Mikey exploded into laughter. "A _juvenile_ is _watching_ this!"

"Can I at least make obscene hand gestures at him as he drives past?" Blue Turtle requested cordially, by which he probably mean something along the lines of a _bras d' honneur_ or maybe a _la concha_.

"Keep your hands on the _wheel_ ," Mama Donatello scolded Leo, so of course Raphael—who could still hear them—released the Shellcycle with both hands, steered with his knees, and used both Sai as make-shift middle fingers. Donatello flopped back and draped a hand over his face. "This is our family," he lamented, as Leo returned the double birdy with a forearm thrust.

"Boys, boys, boys!" April's voice crackled over the speaker as her van gained on them in the rear view mirror. "Settle down now, you can kick the stuffing out of one another once we're not speeding like maniacs down a five lane highway _with my son on board_."

" _Thank you_!" Donatello exclaimed. "Exactly!"

"Hey Mom!" Sandro called excitedly. "I'm fine, really!"

"Oh you are, are you?" she chuckled. "What about if I tell you Dad owes you fifty dollars every time he curses in front of you? You in?"

" _Fifty_ dollars!?" That was a new video game per curse word. "Do you want pictures, audio, or video documentation?!"

Raphael groaned. "Kid's gonna have my wallet by Monday. We still going I-87 through Albany?"

April whooped. "That's my boy!"

"Hey, is it my cue to be awesome yet?" Mikey called as he unbuckled himself and stepped into the aisle. Donatello sighed dramatically but then nodded and pressed a button. The rear doors of the van folded open with a rush of air that shocked the vehicle's youngest turtle. "Whoop! Yessss! Hold it steady!" He stepped towards the rear.

"What are you doing-!?" Sandro barely had time to ask, before Mikey gushed the answer:

"I'm ridin' with April as rearguard security detail, yo!" Wait, since when? " _Cowabunga Dudes_!"

And then _that_ was when Michelangelo leaped out the rear of the Shellraiser, spun through the air like a discus, and landed upon Mom's van roof with a squeal of, "Yeeehawww! _Nailed_ it!" which they could only actually hear because he had his comm link on. Raphael complemented him with 'Nice!'

"And that, Sandro," Donatello said, "is why Mikey's not allowed to drive."

"Or man the control panels for mounted weapons," Leo agreed.

"Sometimes it would be nice to just give him pom-poms and tell him he's on emotional support duty," Donnie drawled.

"I can totally hear you guys!" Mikey complained, probably whilst still trying to crawl into a speeding vehicle through a sunroof.

"Yeah, I dunno what their problem is, Mike," Raph sniffed. "Clearly dat was the fastest way from one car to a'nother, and dese Grannies are just salty, slow, overcautious— so apparently I can't swear, but ahm strongly implyin' a curse word here."

"I managed to get a solid video of that," Sandro remarked as he reviewed the footage.

"You got your phone up _that fast_?" Donatello twisted about in wonderment. " _Really?_ " Sandro showed him the vid. "Wow."

"He takes after me?! _Yes_!" April cheered triumphantly, and the rush of pride Sandro felt for a split second was _weirdly intense_.

* * *

Donatello recommended that he nap, if he could. They were on the road for at least six hours, and at first Sandro watched the road signs. They started off heading towards Pennsylvania or maybe just western Jersey, but soon it was clear they were heading up through the state of New York to meet another freeway. When they reached Albany, they got on a road headed east.

East of New York was _Massachusetts._

Donnie said it would have taken about half the time if they'd gone straight for the destination, but that it was very important they disguise their directional heading. Sandro understood why layers of secrecy were important; Shadows were what protected a Ninja, and his family consisted of some of the best experts in stealth and redirection.

... And apparently some of the best experts in _holding their bladders,_ cause it wasn't like any of them could go into state welcome centers to pee, and Sandro hadn't uh been ready for a commitment of that nature. So soon after getting off the highway in the 'wee' hours of the morning, Leo took pity on his puppy-dog eyes and pulled off on the shoulder on a remote back road, so that a fair number of turtles and a human could all relieve themselves in the bushes. By then it was hours past midnight.

Then they were back on the road, with miles and miles of long, dark, winding country lanes ahead of themselves. The terrain here must still have been part of the Appalachian mountains, or at least the foothills, because everywhere there were rolling hills of deciduous trees, black mounds blotting out tracks of sky, lit only by moonlight and the Shellraiser's bright head-beams.

Sandro rolled down the window and leaned out. _Stars._ Stars, thick like a fine spray of white granuals. He peered up at them and felt the smogless wind.

* * *

"Donnie," Leo prompted as the vehicle slowed. "Is...?"

"You can recognize it by the mailbox," Donatello explained. "We're here."

Sandro must have nodded off for a bit, but he sat up now and glanced out the window and at his phone. It was about fifteen minutes till dawn. Where were they? The Shellraiser slowed almost to a stop so that Leo could turn, and Sandro got to see a glimpse of that aforementioned mailbox. It read: _O'Neil._ He perked up they pulled onto a gravelly old driveway that seemed to go on forever and took them past a copse of trees. Somewhere far beyond they came to a stop, and Leo put the Shellraiser into park and turned off the engine.

Donnie glanced back at him with a smile, and then opened the passenger side door and stepped out. Sandro hurriedly scrambled to do likewise, and then peered out at the massive old wooden building which stood illuminated in the vehicle's parking lights.

"We really do own an old farmhouse," Sandro breathed in realization.

"Ayup," Donnie confirmed contentedly as Leo went to untie their luggage from the rack on the Shellraiser roof. "Neat, huh?"

The rumble of a motorcycle ground to a halt as Raphael pulled up just beside them and threw down his kickstand. "What're we all standin around for?" he growled teasingly as he dismounted and pulled off his helmet. Sandro turned to him with a big smile, and Raphael smiled back. "Hey, Kid." But then Red Turtle straightened, his face went blank, and it seemed his thought process had been entirely derailed. Sandro raised a brow until his father finally managed to articulate, "Is that a _mask_?"

 _Oh! Oh right._ "Maybe?"

Raphael lifted a brow and tilted his head with a grin. "Why's it _black_? You got a goth phase comin' in, the white stripe supposed to be edgy or somethin?"

Sandro leaned back. "Well, in the unlikely occurrence of _that_ phase ever happening, I would expect all of you to dress up as Kiss and record a Birthday Album to embarrass me straight out of it."

Mikey bounced past them, proof April had arrived just behind them. "Instruction set received, Lil Bro!" he crowed, and Raphael laughed.

"Guess I'll ask again later," Red Turtle said as he stepped over to help Leo with that luggage. Sandro smiled again.

They'd crossed the lawn on the way to the porch when the light came on and the front screen door swung open with a squeaky rattle. "Well, well well!" Casey Jones called as he came out and leaned over the porch railing with a winning smile. "Look who it is! Guess I was right to save that last beer, eh!"

"Casey. You better have saved more than _one_ ," Raphael threatened as he headed up the porch stairs with one full trunk over his shoulder and another under his opposite arm.

"Ho! What makes you think I saved it for _you_ and not your _lovely_ wife, eh?"

"Thanks but no thanks Casey," April sighed tolerantly (and Donnie made an indignant noise of agreement) as she came up beside Sandro and draped an arm about his shoulders to squeeze him to her. "Hello honey," she hummed affectionately, and stood on her toes to kiss his temple. " _Happy almost birthday._ "


	50. A Family Gathering

[Author's Note: Count how many scenes you can recognize from your own family gatherings!]

* * *

Jones had been in charge of bringing the alcohol, and cracked open a cold one for Raphael as the two of them traded jibes and reviewed their provisions. The two of them had this down to an art: April liked craft beers, wine coolers, and rum and coke; Donatello was always too wound-up to drink at first but couldn't say no to a piña colada and eventually would end up joining the rest of them with whatever they were drinking; and Mikey was the reason they never bought Tequila anymore. Ever. A thimble of vodka in a gallon of brightly colored Kool-Aid was about all the 'inhibition lowering' that Michelangelo would ever require in his life, and there was a truth!

Though Mikey could mix the drinks for other people, he was good at that.

...Leo would have a mouthful of wine or saki, and only with dinner, and after that it was 'just water, please,' which said something about how 'fun' Leo was. Pfeh. Even Mr. O'Neil would share a couple of beers or a shot of Whisky with Raphael while they talked about life, kids, sports, or whatever. _Not Leo._ Leo had sucked at relaxing as a kid, and now he sucked at it even more as an adult.

Anyway, Raphael congratulated Casey on a job well done, and told him he'd see him at about noon. Where the hell _was_ Leo, anyway? Everyone else was heading to get some shuteye for a few hours.

 _Ah._ Dawn was about to come up over the mountains, and the sky was all blue with a bit of pink on the horizon. Raphael peeked out the front door and found Leo leaned up against the farmhouse wall. He wasn't alone, either: Sandro was leaned over the porch railing. Red Turtle looked between the two of them and then smirked and leaned against the threshold. He looked out at the scenery as the first yellows began shining down over the hillsides.

"Always looks more real out here than it does in the city," he gave credit where it was due. Countryside sunrises were damn pretty.

"Or from underground," Sandro agreed. Raph glanced at the kid because his tone had been almost _surly_ , but Sandro gave a sheepish glance back at him which softened it. Didn't matter either way, because Raph wholeheartedly sympathized:

"That's for damn sure." He stood himself up from the threshold and came over to get a better look at that sunrise and to ask, "D'ya manage to nap in the car?"

"Barely." Alright, who'd gotten him to wear that mask? Made him look effing _adorable._ "I was too excited."

"S'fine, your mom and I been up a full twenty-four hours. C'mon," he patted the kid's shell, "lemme show ya where you're stayin. Wake-up call's at ten so we can try to actually enjoy some of this sunlight."

* * *

"This — is — _Chaos._ "

Sandro looked up at Leo blankly and tried to understand what had possibly prompted such a grave utterance, as nothing but breakfast was transpiring anywhere around them.

"Pardon?" Sandro was working on only four hours of sleep. It was going to take a few more minutes before Donatello's Ultra Black Coffee kicked in.

Leo, who alone did not appear sleepy at all, glanced up at him with a haunted expression, as if he were wondering how someone could do something _so_ _maniacal_ , so _unprincipled_ , so _senselessly destructive_ as whatever it was he'd just witnessed. Then he quietly held out a small container for Sandro's inspection.

The inside of the marmalade jar was swirled with an aesthetically pleasing mixture of butter, blueberry preserves, strawberry dressing, grape jam, peanut butter, and chocolate.

"Huh," Sandro remarked. "She must like you."

Leo gave him a long and disbelieving stare. Then he shook his head and set that jar of wholly desecrated marmalade back down and set to spreading it upon his pancakes.

Donatello came over to give them all some freshly fried eggs, paused at the sight of Leo's glower, took note of the eldest turtle's rainbow topped pancakes, and frowned. But then, oh, _then_ Donnie must have realized what had happened, because he collapsed into a chair, flopped over the table, and began crowing with laughter and hitting his fist upon the surface.

After staring down his younger brother for a long and unforgiving moment, Leo smirked a little and at least calmed down enough to lean over and remind Sandro: "Had anyone else been down here yet, their next question would have been "What 'she'?"

 _Crap_. Hopefully that was a one-time-only slip.

* * *

" _Uncle Raphael!_ " shouted eight-year-old Shadow Jones as she sprinted across the field to greet them. She was blonde-haired and about four-feet tall, and in-between her bravery and precociousness she might have reminded a person of a younger Wildcard, if not for a few crucial details. For example: Mikey stooped to greet her, but she ran straight past him as if he wasn't even there. Raphael burst out laughing at her enthusiasm (and maybe just a bit at poor Mikey's face), and hunkered down to grab her up and lift her over his head like an airplane. She squealed delightedly and then clambered over his arms and onto his shoulders and shell.

"There was this bully at school!" she told him. "He was being mean to the new kids and breaking their colored pencils, so I knocked him over with a dodge ball and made him cry and got detention!"

"That a girl!" Raphael approved as he sat her down on his shell with a leg over each shoulder. "D'ya dad get ya ice cream for it?"

"Double chocolate with chocolate chips!" Shadow agreed with a triumphant raise of both arms.

Michelangelo was still trying to digest Shadow's turtle preferences but, to be fair, she was clearly her father's daughter. Donatello patted him on the shoulder as if to say, 'There there.' Mikey mumbled something to the effect of, "Why is no one's favorite turtle ever _Orange_?" which Donatello immediately set to scolding him was absolutely _untrue,_ because Orange had a _huge_ _fan club,_ and Cowabunga Carl had been fiscally successful owed to its popularity with children, _and so forth and so on_.

Sandro glanced up at his father and smiled a little, thinking about when he'd been small enough to ride on peoples' shoulders like that. When Shadow turned around and waved at him, he laughed and waved back.

Four-year-old Shadow had been an absolute _nightmare:_ she'd been terrible at video games, too small to roughhouse with, and she'd repeatedly pinched him and asked 'why?' to everything. She'd also kept pretending she was Godzilla while crushing, chewing on, and throwing his toys. Nine-year-old Sandro had not been impressed, nope, and had avoided her like the plague at family gatherings for years afterwards... but at around seven she'd started showing off _her_ action figures to _him_ , and even though she was way too young to really be his 'friend,' he'd gotten less shy and annoyed with her. After all, she was one of the few kids he ever even got to see.

* * *

"Alright everyone! First order of business is _bug spray_ ," April announced as Donatello helped Leo set up their collapsible chairs alongside the pond. "Mikey you get right back here. Yes, _you_."

"Do what she says," Donatello chastised over his shoulder, and got a very dramatic sigh and an eye-roll for his troubles.

"That stuff waterproof?" Mr. Jones asked. "Mind if we borrow some? I think the cheap-o stuff I bought is coming off; Shadow's already got three bites."

" _April!_ " came a far-off shout. Sandro knew that voice! He perked up and twisted about, and saw his maternal grandfather approaching with a fishing rod in hand which explained his previous whereabouts. Auntie Robyn trailed after him, with two yappy small dogs she always named ridiculous things like Precious and Treasure.

"Grandpa!" Sandro exclaimed, and ran up to meet him halfway and hug him (carefully, because 'Old people are fragile' Mom had warned him).

"Hey, Sandro!" Grandpa O'Neil laughed, hugging him tightly and then pulling back to examine him at arm's length. "I keep forgetting how _tall_ you're getting!" he laughed. "Really shot up over the last year, haven't you?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sandro grinned a little bashfully. He had never outright _asked_ what his grandfather felt about having a green grandson, but honestly he could always feel the love. They did have these funny awkward silences all the time, courtesy of how few 'normal' life experiences Sandro could relate to. He didn't go to school, play sports, join clubs, attend parties, or meet pretty girls, which pretty much cut out all the usual cross-generational banter that regular grandfathers got to work with. They _usually_ ended up talking about technology, which was cool.

" _Hello_ , Sandro!"

Ah, Auntie Robyn... Where to start? Sandro's one-and-only Aunt lived in Grandpa O'Neil's basement. She was a chronically messy person, whose car (when she could afford one) was usually filled to the brim with trash. Her money went to her kinda-annoying dogs, designer clothes, and overpriced beauty-products, and she was always immaculately groomed. If she was on dish duty with you, though, watch out: she'd gossip the entire time and dry off _maybe_ two dishes. And she never could afford her own plane ticket anywhere.

Part of Auntie Robyn's troubles weren't her own fault: she'd been in a very bad accident as a kid and struggled for years with addictive pain relievers. Only recently had medical cannabis (of all things?) mellowed her out enough to hold a consistent job at a nail salon. She was _always_ there for family, though (she'd hitchhiked home for the holidays on numerous occasions when money was tight), and she was the _nicest_ person in the world and, as Leo put it (and Leo wasn't much impressed by the rest of Robyn, so his vote of confidence really meant something), Robyn was one of those rare people who'd put her life on the line to help you out and never falter once.

So Auntie Robyn never had any money to buy 'real' presents with, but she always did manage to scrounge up some sort of gift for Sandro that kinda made sense, even if it was something like a twenty-five dollar gift card for McDonald's that was sorta hard for him to use. He really appreciated that. He understood that her life was rougher than it looked from the outside, and that she was doing her best—

 _W-wait a minute...?_

Donatello was the first one to incredulously demand, "Are you _pregnant?!_ " and moments later there was a crowd around a smug-looking Auntie Robyn. Her belly was huge!

"Mnhmm!"

"Whose the _father?_ "

"You're going to have a _cousin_ Sandro!" she distracted them with. "What do you think of that?!"

 _A cousin?_ Sandro had spent the majority of his life wishing he'd had cousins, but the sort he'd wished for had been _shelled_ and his own age. It had honestly never previously occurred to him that Auntie Robyn might get married some day (or not?) and provide a... _normal_ cousin. It almost didn't feel like that _counted_. Maybe the problem was that Sandro had always visualized 'a cousin' as someone he could play with, and this cousin would be in Colorado living out a normal life above ground.

" _Omigod, i_ s it going to be a girl or a boy?" Mikey bounced from foot to foot. "Can I touch your belly?"

"Of _course,_ Mikey! Doctors say it's a boy!" Robyn hummed happily to herself as she framed her stomach with both hands in the shape of a heart. "He's due this November! Isn't that exciting?!"

"He's _kicking me...!_ " Mikey squealed in a tiny whisper.

Donatello and April looked at one another. Leo and Raphael looked at one another. Mr. Jones and Grandpa looked at one another. Sandro almost laughed, but _didn't,_ because he liked Auntie Robyn and didn't want to wreck her feelings talking about her poor decision-making skills when it was obviously _way_ too late for second thoughts. She looked so happy, so he and Mikey could be the ones who were innocently happy for her. He came forward and hugged her tightly.

"Love you Auntie," he told her. "Sounds awesome."

* * *

Sandro had asked, 'Can I swim?' to which his mother had Responded, 'Sure!' but then he realized he kinda had to ask, 'Do I need to wear clothing?' and she'd laughed and told him 'Of course not.'

Whelp! If mom said so!

Sandro stripped down and greedily set to submersing himself in that pond. The water was way cleaner than sewage would ever be, and didn't smell of chemicals. Mikey splashed in beside him.

"Wanna learn how to catch bullfrogs?" his youngest uncle whispered conspiratorially, and Sandro nodded eagerly.

Leo and Casey waded waist-deep in the water, to instruct Shadow in how to kayak. Everyone was _extremely_ impressed when she managed to overturn herself so she was upside down in the water and then flip herself back upright again, and after that they must have reckoned it was pretty safe to send her off and keep an eye on her from shore. Leo sat down to fish with Grandpa

Donatello was reading on a kindle and chatting with Mom. Mom sat back in her two-piece polka-dotted bathing suit and sunned herself.

Raphael leaned back in the water and lazily splashed Mom.

Mom tilted up her sunglasses onto the top of her head, and gave Raphael a look that said that he was allowed to get away with that _exactly one time._ When Raphael daringly splashed her again, she whipped out a massive Nerf Super Soaker from seemingly nowhere and went Commando on him, and Raphael jumped up and backpedaled with a startled curse, tripped, and fell on his arse.

"Some Ninja!" she shouted victoriously as he tried to splash her with wave he made with a single forearm, and she dodged to the side. "Missed again! Too slow!"

Sandro gaped and then burst out laughing, and he was in stitches betimes his father finally managed to get hold of his mother and wrangle that Super Soaker away, and then the two of them overbalanced and ended up in the mud, slapping handfuls of the stuff into one-another's faces.

Later on the Turtles played at kicking a soccer ball to one another, which was only possible because they weren't cooped up inside any constrained space. All of them could kick and kick hard. Raphael nailed Leo with a ball _twice_ , until Blue Turtle finally joined them and showed off that he could nail Raphael right back. Alongside them, April, Grandpa, and Casey played the same sort of game with Shadow, while Robyn cheered them from the sidelines.

* * *

 _Mighty Water Huntress is black with mud, and well concealed in her watery domain. She stalks her pray from the cattails, and he is none the wiser,_ Shadow narrated. _Her faithful Dragon Turtle steed is silent and ready. This will be the greatest of hunts, celebrated in song and dance for seasons to come...!_

"RAAAWWRR!" Shadow and Raphael bellowed in unison as the tag-team of giant-turtle and child leaped out of the pond, one on the shoulders of the other.

"JESUS CHRIST RAPH!" Casey fell back with a shriek.

Donatello recorded the whole thing.

* * *

Sandro wasn't certain what happened. One second he'd been testing out the kayak to see if it was buoyant enough to carry him. Leo'd just explained that kayak had been theirs, when they'd been younger, but that several more years and hundreds of extra pounds of bone and muscle had left them unable to use it.

The next second the kayak had oveturned as if by magic, and Sandro was blinking through cloudy water to see...

... four white alligator snouts staring at him.

He blinked, looking from one, to the other, to the next, to the last. They blinked back at him (with their outer eyelids), and then one of them waved. They were all wearing bathing suits. Oh _boy_. He surfaced for air, spit out water, and then turned about to catch sight of his family. "Donniee!" he called. "There are albino alligators in the water and they are intelligent!"

Several adults didn't notice anything was amiss, but Donatello put his book down immediately. " _What_?" he demanded.

Anything Sandro might have replied was drowned out (slightly literally) by an enormous wave as a gigantic American Alligator burst out from the water and roared thunderously overhead. Sandro shielded himself from the water and then looked up as Leatherhead stood upright, dripping with water and wearing nothing but a set of fashionable Nike swimming trunks.

"Leatherhead!" he cheered, and hugged the gator immediately.

"Ah. You have grown much, small turtle; you are almost unrecognizable." Leatherhead looked from side to side, and then reached over and retrieved the kayak and awkwardly offered it back to him as if it weighed no more than a thimble. "Sorry about that, the children—" a tiny, bright-white alligator appeared on his shoulder, and another climbed up out of the water on top of Sandro's shell and _cooed_ inquisitively at him, "—ah, they are a little _mischievous._ "

* * *

"Must be somethin' in the air," Raphael reflected bemusedly as Michelangelo tried to alternate between hugging Leatherhead to death and twisting about to see the four tiny alligators who were skittering about and hiding behind or climbing upon everything in sight. Sandro snickered. First Robyn, now _Leatherhead_.

"Did you get here by waterway?" Leonardo inquired as a very worried Donatello tried to get a closer look at even one of the kids.

"Took a train partway," Leatherhead explained conversationally, and he must have meant by cargo freighter.

"Well introduce us to the tiny squadron of adorable children you've brought!" Robyn insisted, and it was slightly relevant she used 'squadron' because there were _four_ , and four was a good number for mutant babies. "Are they yours?"

"They are," Leatherhead said, and then left it at that, almost in the same way Robyn had. Sandro had a brief moment to appreciate that his mom and dad really did seem to love one another, and had stayed together as a family unit despite the sorta awkward timing of his conception. That was something he'd never known he'd been taking for granted.

"Can I inquire as to the genders?" Grandpa O'Neil asked respectfully, even though they were all wearing one-piece black bathing suits. Best not to assume!

"They are female," Leatherhead confirmed matter-of-factly. "Unfortunately the rest of the clutch was eaten while their mother attempted to get them to safety."

An awkward silence ensued. Sandro cleared his throat and said, "Yeah, that... that sounds like normal behavior for crocs and gators in the wild."

"Indeed," Leatherhead agreed.

It then became obvious (to more than just Sandro and Donatello) that all of the kids were _less_ humanoid than Leatherhead. They skittered around alternately on two and four legs, and the coos and squeaks they made were distinctly reptilian. Donatello leaned back with a tight posture, a hand crossed over his midsection to prop up his opposite elbow, and one hand draped over his mouth. He was quiet a moment before asking in a strained voice, "Can they _talk_?"

"They do not make attempts at speaking," Leatherhead answered. "But they enjoy watching television."

"Oh," was all Donatello could bring himself to say, because he was doubtless hard at work determining the likely ecological repercussions of four mutant alligators hitting sexual maturity in a decade or so. Even so, 'can I please spay your children?' was probably not an acceptable conversational topic upon first greeting a person after a three-year absence. "Do they have opposable thumbs?"

"Are they _all_ going to throw people by the face at their enemies when they grow up!?" Mikey demanded helpfully from a pile of tiny gators.

* * *

Leatherhead had brought his family's possessions with him in a waterproof rucksack, and among them were a set of _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_ coloring books. That was how Sandro and Michelangelo ended up curled up on the living room floor with four toddlers draped all over their shells, patiently coloring cherubic unicorns, while the family 'adults' talked Mutant Rights politics in the background over Coors with lime.

Mikey kept checking back in with his assistant colorers for input. "Like this? Is this right?" They put new crayons in his hands seemingly at random. "Oh I see. Yeah, that's _ingenious_ ," he praised.

"I think I'm in love," Sandro confessed as one of the toddlers snuggled up underneath his arm and scribbled purple contentedly across the lines of the page they were working on. None of them looked anything like Lady Smiles, being all skinny and lanky with rounded heads, articulate fingers, and soft scutes. "Why wasn't _Shadow_ this adorable as a three-year-old?"

"Pfft, she kinda was," Mikey snickered. "Frame of reference, Lil Bro! Your head was in a different place when you were, what, eight? You didn't want nothing to do with 'adorable!'"

"Are you kidding? Shadow was trying to put my eye out with a football when she was three," Sandro grumbled.

Donatello came over to peer down at them, still wearing 'worried' like it was going out of style. "How's coloring going?" he asked quietly.

"Fab!" Mikey grinned. "Yo, relax Donster, they're _fine_! Hey, do you think it's weird Leatherhead hasn't named them yet? Like, how does he tell them apart?"

"Well," Donatello cleared his throat. " _You_ named _him_."

Mikey got excited. "Do you think that means I can name them, too?"

"I'm sure he'd accept suggestions," Donatello answered tightly, but at least managed a thin smile.

"Wait a minute, I got an idea." Sandro raised a hand. "Girls?" He looked about, mentally checking off that they all did seem to register that he was talking to him. "Who wants to be named _Fluttershy_?"

They stared unresponsively. After a moment, one of them looked to the other and squeaked. Mikey's had caught on, though, and he had the enthusiasm necessary to keep trying: "What about _Twilight_ Sparkle?" Orange Turtle desperately hoped. "Is anyone here Twilight Sparkle?"

 _Click._ The gator under Sandro's arm jumped up (and nearly bumped her head into his chin), and squeaked and squeaked. She slapped her hands down upon the coloring book and skittered about, and got the attention of all her siblings. They leaned in close to pay attention.

"That's you?" Sandro asked. "You're _Twilight Sparkle_?"

She gave him the most delighted expression a reptile could possibly imagine, and squeaked an enthusiastic, "Mmph!"

"Well then hold on now," Mikey pretended at confusion, "If you're Twilight Sparkle, then who is Pinkie Pie?" One of the girls on Mikey's shell understood now, and went absolutely bonkers. "You? I see!"

"Oh my _god_ ," Donatello groaned in disbelief as he finally caught on to what was happening. "Are you naming them after—?"

"Excuse me, this is very serious business," Sandro insisted of his uncle. "Now is anyone here _Rainbow Dash_ , by any chance?" Someone was! And someone else was _Applejack,_ as it turned out, which was how the four daughters of Leatherhead-the-alligator all got their names.

Donatello stared, looking slowly back and forward between the celebrating children and their two babysitters. If nothing else, this proved they understood language.

"So, you're never going to believe this," Sandro snickered as Michelangelo rolled about in a hugging frenzy of tiny squeaking gator girls. "But the self-identifying Purple One caught on first, so I'm hypothesizing she might be the _smart one_."

"Ugh!" announced Shadow as she came up to glare at what all of them were doing. "This is so _GIRLY._ You guys are all _GIRLS_. Not cool!"

"Gasp! That's sexist!" Michelangelo gasped indignantly and that, more than anything, was what made Sandro collapse into laughter.

* * *

The Turtle family went to bed just a few hours after to the sun went down; they were pooped after waking up so early, and they wanted to be able to get up even earlier the next day. The farmhouse was out of beds, cots, and room space, so Leatherhead took the couch and slept with his daughters flopped over his back and snout. Twilight Sparkle waved at Sandro as he headed up to bed, and he waved back.

"Hey, Sandro?" He paused at the top of the stairs, where Shadow was wearing some Storm Trooper pajamas. "My dad's hanging out with your dad. Can you read me a bedtime story?" And instead of any old collection of kid's stories, she held up a dog-eared compilation of Indiana Jones short stories.

Sandro blinked at her. " _Absolutely,_ " he agreed.

* * *

[Author's Note: I think I may have enjoyed Sandro having actual family members around to play with *way* too much XD. _Sandro_ sure did!]


	51. Twins and Quadruplets

_It's our birthday today._

Sandro's eyes opened and for a moment the farmhouse bedroom was strange. Then he pushed the covers off and crept anxiously out onto the first floor landing. The only way the old staircase didn't creak was if a person kept their weight on the very edge of each step, but downstairs Leatherhead was snoring so loudly that it drowned out any sounds Sandro might have made while sneaking past. On entering the kitchen he saw that the wall clock agreed with his phone: It was 5:12 in the morning, and wake-up call wasn't for another three hours.

He tapped his contacts and thumbed up and down the brief list, wondering if he dared select 'Free Pizza' to check out all the new photos someone had been spamming him with. If he got too involved and someone managed to sneak up on him, a tremendous amount of shit would hit the fan at a very bad time. He walked slowly about the kitchen until it occurred to him that he was pacing, and then he turned off his phone, straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and tried to decide what was bothering him so badly.

His grandfather, his dad, his aunt and mom, all four of the 'Turtle Brothers,' Shadow and the gator quadruplets... Everything about yesterday had been fun, fluffy, and heartwarming, but now it all weighed down on him like some strange, jittery, crushing vice. He had the oddest sensation that he was _stressed_ because he'd been so _happy_ the day before, but that didn't make any sense. Did it?

 _It's *our* birthday today._

Almost guiltily, Sandro reached up to pull his bandanna from his head. He rubbed the silk between his fingers.

Three fingers settled gently on his shoulder, and Sandro turned in surprise to find Uncle Leo, wordlessly extending him a fishing pole.

Sandro made them both a thermos of hot tea, first.

* * *

Leonardo led the way out to fish at a creek, which was some distance beyond the pond. It was deep in places, and swirled in eddies over round stones in others. Sandro sat beside his uncle as they opened up the bait and tackle box, and wordlessly the older turtle instructed him on what lure to use and how to apply the bait. Sandro was not squirmish about bait.

Silence stretched after they'd both made a decent cast into a calm part of the water.

"I wish she was here," Sandro finally admitted.

"I can tell." Leo replied as he sat back to relax. "You are surrounded by people who love you, and yet you still appear lonely."

Sandro frowned and then looked hesitantly up to his uncle. Then he looked back to the creek. "This would have been a great time to introduce her to everyone. Everyone's here."

"You were not yet ready," Leo reminded him. "Do not feel ashamed of that. In a month it will be Halloween, and then Thanksgiving and Christmas. Look forward to those things, and derive motivation from them instead of dread."

Sandro thought about Halloween, but somehow that did not make him feel any better. Instead he grew some strange nostalgic mix of sad and frustrated, thinking of all the times he and Wildcard had been outside and alone, walking the streets at night with no one the wiser that he was anything other than human. "I miss my little sister." Leo glanced over at him. "It feels like the most important person of the day isn't here."

"Should not the most important person of Sandro's birthday be Sandro?" Leo wondered aloud.

"Yeah well it turns out we're twins." He picked up a rock and flicked it into the water, before it occurred to him that doing so would probably scare the fish. "It's her birthday today, too."

"I see."

There was no skepticism in Leo's voice, and so Sandro had nothing to fight about. A silence stretched.

"I-I'm the older sibling," Sandro finally added. "She asked her dad what time of day she was born, and he said an hour shy of midnight."

"Ah. And so you worry about her when she is gone, because she is given to random acts of foolishness."

"They're not random," Sandro muttered. "She doesn't show stress to anyone, even herself, until it explodes out in sheer over-the-top nonsense. _I'm_ the one who can harry her into unburdening herself, but we're never alone anymore, and now I don't know what to do and I just keep worrying about her."

"This should be her father's job, not yours."

"She doesn't listen to _him_ ," Sandro scowled. "She _loves_ him and admires him, and he does his best, but there's this edge of _resentment_ she'd never admit she carries, because she can't rely on him to be stable when she needs him to be, or even to _discipline_ her consistently. Sometimes she's the one mothering _him._ She has no frame of reference for _anything_ : difficult, easy, dangerous, safe, good, bad, except for children's cartoons... And-and by the way I have a bone to pick with you," he twisted to glare at his uncle, who frowned thoughtfully his way. "She gets to see _him_ being bipolar plenty enough, she doesn't need that from _you_. I mean I know you've been the butt of a lot of criticism lately," Sandro looked sheepishly down, "which makes me worry about how you are holding up, but one of the reasons Wild admires our family is because we're reliable, and probably because we have rules and _principles_. And... and..."

Leo reached around the back of his shell and pulled him closer, and Sandro realized his own face was flushed and he had some tears threatening. He rubbed at them with both hands and scooted closer to his uncle for comfort.

"Oh, sometimes you really are Donnie's son," Leo murmured affectionately. "Thinking about _everything_ and _everyone_ all at once... See, the thing about fishing which you may struggle to appreciate, is that fishing is a time to clear one's head and merely _be_."

"I'm sorry," Sandro mumbled.

"Don't be sorry. Twins really _ought_ to be together on their birthdays, after all. Perhaps you should investigate all the texts she's been sending you, and simply keep me company whilst I fish for both of us."

Sandro sniffled but then did bring out his phone. The very first picture was one of a bag of trail mix, which looked to be fairly ordinary and made with nuts, raisins, and chocolate candy. But Wildcard's caption warned, 'Those aren't M&Ms,' after which she sent him a close up of two pieces, which revealed they weren't branded with an 'm,' but rather with a Skittles 'S.' "I live with a MANIAC!" Wild decried.

Sandro figured uncle Leo and his marmalade ought to take some comfort that some kind of cosmic justice had clearly been served.

* * *

Joker sat alongside a very calm stretch of river, reading _Pride and Prejudice_. The shade was plesant and the birds were chirping, and he'd hosed himself and his troublemaker down with bug spray and suntan lotion. Mumu was curled up in an upside-down baseball cap beside his leg.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," the aforementioned troublemaker moaned. "You won't take any pictures, right? You've _promised_ you won't take any pictures!"

Joker held up crossed fingers. "Technically I promised I wouldn't _share_ or _send_ any pictures without your explicit permission."

"Sounds like a lot of loopholes. Gah! This is the stupidest thing everrrr!" she wailed. "I probably look like a demented puppy!"

Joker glanced over at where his daughter had donned her brand new bathing suit and was paddling about in the river . Then he looked back to his book, licked his thumb, and turned the page. "No, much worse than that. You look humiliatingly adorable. You'd never live this down, were anyone but me to see you."

"Why am I doing this!? My best friend is a semi-aquatic reptile, _why won't I just ask him to teach me how to swim?!_ "

"Because you are too proud to admit you do not know how to do something," Joker said, "and won't be caught dead taking part in any athletic activity at which you aren't already a master, lest you looking anything other than _perfect._ "

"Curse you _PRIDE_ ," she wailed dramatically to the sky, and floundered slightly and had to cough out water. "You are a sinnn!" Cough cough. "A SSINNN!" Cough. "Ow, my nose... I think I need my bandanna to convince the water it ought to float me; This is clearly going to take more good luck than," bloop, "initially anticipated..."

"Are you, um, entirely _sure_ I can't send your turtle friend a picture of this?" Joker chortled. "It looks like you might need some help, and I think he ought to be prepared in the event that the two of you should ever accidentally end up on any water-themed adventures.

"Absolutely not," she growled at him from the water.

"Pretty, pretty, pretty please, with ice cream and sugar on top?"

"Wellll..." she glanced about herself, "since you asked so nicely, and since I clearly am going to need more days of practice than- Wait a minute, are you doing it?! Stop! Don't, I didn't give you permission! WAIT-!"

* * *

Sandro was quiet for a moment. Then he turned his phone around so uncle Leo could see a picture of an utterly scandalized and half-drowned Wildcard in an adorable green bathing suit with yellow inflatables about each arm, clearly trying to drag herself out of a river so she could stop said picture from being taken. 'Happy Birthday, Sandro!' her father's smugness was nearly audible through his caption.

A smile twitched on and then fought to take over Leonardo's face. It slowly _won_ as the older turtle leaned back and shuttered his eyes at the photograph. "Apparently, someone has been too embarrassed to tell you that she cannot swim."

Seeing Leo react so positively towards Wildcard made Sandro's heart soar. "I am going to be rubbing this photo in her face until the day she _dies_ ," he growled happily, as he turned about and texted back 'best present ever' to her father. "She literally got four red sliders together, made them tiny minnow pizzas, and whittled stick weapons for them. Holy crap, how long did this _take_? That's an absurd amount of work, look at it! I need to send it to Mikey."

"It seems you may have met Wildcard's father. During the hurricane perhaps?"

Sandro looked up from his phone. "Oh..."

"Have you told Donatello of the encounter?"

Sandro withered guiltily and shook his head.

"Mn. Believe me: I understand why you did not wish to worry the family worrywart. But if there is anyone whom you can trust to be on your side every step of the way, it is indisputably _Donatello._ You should be up front with him about the details, and not risk leaving him flat-footed against your parents. He is the sort of person who must be given time to organize his thoughts ahead of time."

"But... I sorta wanna leave her dad out of this." Leo glanced at him inquisitively. "I sorta like him, and I can tell he really loves her... but he's skittish and unstable; and Mom's... well... nosy?"

"'Nosy' is your mother's middle name," Leo agreed as he went to fish out that thermos of tea Sandro had made for them. "But these are things you can share with Donatello. He will not be _offended_ that Wildcard's father is strange and shy. He will merely erase 'parent-to-parent meetups' from his strategy book."

Sandro reflected on that. Donnie had originally been very _skeptical_ of Wild, and Sandro had worried any mention of her flighty father might have made her look bad (especially because he and Wild had so many secrets). But now that everyone had warmed up to her, Leo was right. Sandro frowned, and looked thoughtfully up at his eldest uncle. "Thank you. For... taking the time to talk with me..."

Leo was quiet over his tea for a moment. Then he looked to Sandro and smiled lightly. "I am sorry that you should find me doing so to be strange."

Maybe Sandro could mention something else to him. "I guess I'm still _really_ nervous about telling Mom. Even with help."

"Have you considered speaking to _Raphael_ first, instead of April?

Sandro laughed hard, and then stared at his uncle in discomforted incredulity. "You're kidding, right? He'd just kill me."

"Hmm. Of your two parents, who is most likely to understand what loneliness feels like?" Leo asked him. "Who knows what it is like to live in a sewers? Who met his first real friend at very nearly your own age? Whose best friend is _Casey Jones_? Who might actually be _excited_ for you?"

Sandro thought about that. He thought about it quite a lot, actually.

* * *

"Can't believe you all let this Orange idiot name four toothy maws of death after cartoon unicorns," Raphael groused as he came up to the kitchen table with a bundle under arm. "Got a perfectly respectable list of female featherweight boxers you oughta reviewed beforehand."

"Don't look at me!" Casey protested. "Blame Donnie!" to which Donnie merely stared from over his half-finished coffee in a way that promised death should anyone push too many of his buttons before his morning caffeinated ritual had been completed.

"Ponies, Dad, _gosh_ ," Sandro complained with a melodramatic eye-roll as he entered the kitchen through he back door. "Only Twilight Sparkle's a unicorn. Duh." Raphael turned a disbelieving stare down at him. Then he smacked him upside the back of the head. "Ow! What?!" he laughed, whirling about to grin mischievously at his father. He was feeling _much_ better after spending the morning with Leo. "Don't hit me, I'm the Birthday Boy!"

"I'm nah even gonna have dis conversation, 'Birthday Boy'" Raphael growled, which was made all the more ironic by how he'd just spent the last half hour with a sewing machine. "Here ya go, girls," he segued. "Which one of yous adorable little snappers picked Pink?"

Mikey pointed demonstratively at the aptly named Pinkie Pie, and Raphael leaned over the child and promptly bestowed on her a bright hot-pink kerchief which he tied off about her neck. To say that the girl was thrilled would have been an understatement: she rolled backwards over herself in ecstatic glee and then crawled all over her father and Raphael and everyone else in the surrounding vicinity. All three of her sisters skittered eagerly forward to see if they had matching presents. They did: one lavender, one yellow, and one bright baby blue.

Raphael leaned back and put his hands on his hips, inspecting a job well done as tiny enthusiastic alligator babies gleed themselves out all over the kitchen. "Right! Well at least now someone other than 'Dad' can tell them apart. Th' hell do they eat, by the way? Cereal and milk, like anyone?"

Leatherhead cleared his throat and then confessed almost apologetically, "They are lactose intolerant."

A moment of silence was held for this tremendous loss. then Mikey said, "No, that's okay yo, I know how to make this awesome pizza with goat cheese that's like 99% lactose free, and I can just totally cover the surface in anchovies! Psst, Sandro, gators eat fish just like crocs, right?"

Sandro squinted at him and gestured that Mikey should probably just ask their father, to which Leatherhead gave a big huff and a nod of his head.

"Hm. Our timing is impeccable, then," Leo said as he propped open the doorway and set aside his fishing pole. "Girls?" They looked towards him just as he tossed the first of his catch of the day into the air, and all of their little eyes went wide. Three of them opened their mouths to try and catch the flying fish, but Rainbow Dash—or 'Blue' as Raphael would be referring to her—leaped straight off the top of the table and snatched her meal straight out of the air.

"Ninja-in-the-Making!" Mikey cheered her as the other girls mobbed Leo in search of more free breakfast.

"Stop treating the alligators like trained seals!" Raphael protested, while Shadow pleaded, "Can I throw one to them?!"

Leatherhead just smiled toothily, perhaps glad to be among other mutants again for a change, or perhaps just happy to have enthusiastic nannies.

* * *

He was okay until the actual Birthday celebration happened. _Better_ than okay! He was making jokes and teasing Shadow mercilessly. But then Sandro looked down at his cake, lit with fourteen candles in the shape of a '14,' and somehow everything just went wrong.

Donnie and Michelangelo had spent hours that morning baking that cake and putting the finishing touches on it, and it was themed after the New York Red Bulls soccer team (woot!) and looked really cool. The kitchen lights were off and the atmosphere was filled with smiles and festivity, as his family sung the words to 'Happy Birthday' all around him, some on-key, some not-so-much; the gator girls mostly just hummed every which-way a person could hum.

But instead of feeling anything normal or joyful, all Sandro could think about was sitting on the couch with Wildcard tucked up under one arm, fast asleep under the couch _Red Bulls_ blanket. Time seemed to have slowed down, and he was left with the hyperactive realization that he was experiencing _dread_ , or some sort of protracted state of panic. Why? Was he really so irrationally attached to Wildcard that he needed her to be there _all the time_? That sounded like a splendid reason to see a therapist!

No, calm down, calm down. Maybe the real reason was this: almost everyone present for his Birthday Week would leave and go on with their own lives. They were temporary fixtures of his life, so having them around and Wildcard gone felt like some strange rewind back to a part of his life _before her,_ which would make _her_ temporary too. But Wildcard, Wildcard _would be there_ when he got home, he reminded himself firmly.

Sandro took a deep breath, bottled away the panic, and steeled himself to blow out the candles. "Make a wish!" Robyn reminded him.

 _Make a wish._

* * *

Raphael opened his eyes. The house was pitch black in the dead of night, and the sounds of crickets outside almost occluded all other sound. But he _knew_ the sound of his own damn Shellcycle, and the sound of it revving up was loud enough to pull him out, battle-ready, from even the heaviest slumber.

 _The hell_? The vehicle didn't sound close enough, which probably meant someone had walked it down the driveway and only turned it on as they'd gotten nearer the road in an effort to keep the theft 'silent.'

He reached for his Sai and stood up, but then blinked over at where weak infravision ought to have revealed Sandro's shell... but the cot was empty.

 _No way._

Silent as death, so as not to wake up April, Leo, or anyone else, Raphael darted out of his bedroom and down the staircase. He reached the threshold and jogged down from the porch, just in time to spy the bright headlights and and green under-chassis lighting of the Shellcycle as she started off along the road. By the look of things, Sandro had at least been prudent enough to steal _his helmet_ , too.

"The _hell_ do you think you're going?" Raphael muttered to himself, watching as the Cycle cautiously picked up speed on its winding way down the country lane, coasted gently into a sharp turn, squealed almost to a stop, and then revved hard for speed as it's driver got the hang of things. _Vroom._ _Vrooooommmm...!_ Red Turtle coughed a laugh, and then smirked, and shook his head wondrously. "Yeah, you're my son alright."

* * *

11:01 PM read the clock, and Google Maps was tell him the journey was still forty minutes. He had to hurry, because somehow that was what would make it count. No amount of simulator games in the _world_ could prepare a person for actual G-Forces. He winced through an absolute _skid._ At least the treads on this thing were massive. _Slow down heading into a curve. Speed up coming out of one._ _Come on, Sandro!_

11:10. 11:15. 11:20. 11:30.

His brakes screeched as he pulled the Shell Cycle to a startled halt, and he nearly flew forward over the handlebars and took a moment to be grateful his family could build such incredibly well-made things as this motorcycle. Ow. He squinted off to the side and then turned the bright beams.

 _Daughters of the American Revolution State Forest  
Department of Environmental Management, Division of Forests  
_ _Hampshire County,_ _Massachusetts_

Sandro turned the vehicle, keeping his brights on to illuminate gravel and later dirt roads, and wooden signs posted to the sides. He paused alongside the arrow to 'campsites,' before a wide swath of tree-covered lots and hidden tents, and thought to turn off his brights. Here and there he could see and smell the light of campfires. He reached for his phone. 11.45. Navigating in this was going to be a _mess—_

"Dad, the Fire Marshal said no. And the Park Ranger said doubly no. They will totally kick us out if we make another fireball. Yes, even if it's just to prank the boy-scout next door. We already did that! Oh god, is that another raccoon? They have too much me in them, it's dangerous."

 _Loudmouth._ Sandro grabbed for the accelerator and tore down the dirt pathway on his left. The sound of the Shellcycle motor, and the web of green lights, drew the attention of his quarry. He eased into a stop that kicked up dirt just outside the ring of their fireplace. Were his coat and kama recognizable?

"Oh — Mah — Gawd," Wildcard breathed, lunging forward from her log seating. "Where has this gorgeous piece of mechanical engineering been, and why wasn't I told about her!?"

"S'my dad's," Sandro croaked, leaning over the handlebars to admire what he'd actually managed to find.

"Is it completely custom!?" she demanded, coming up alongside the bike for a more thorough visual inspection. "How thick are these wheels!? They're like _barrels!"_

"I think he built most of it," Sandro agreed, dropping the kickstand and getting off the bike. His tail was sore, but he didn't care. He was probably grinning like an idiot, but the bike helmet was hiding it.

" S' _Beautiful_!" She wiped at imaginary tears, but then turned her impish smile up to him. "Speaking of beautiful things... Holy Toledo! How did you get here, _Princess_?"

"By bike; Glad to finally be noticed." He looked past her shoulder. "Hey Mr. Hamilton."

Wildcard's father gave a light nod and a wave of his fingertips. Then—bless the man—he turned and pretended they weren't there.

So Wildcard took that gift and decided to push her luck with it. Of course. "Take me for a motorcycle ride," she demanded to a father's visible background cringe.

"No can do, Crazy," Sandro tousled her hair and looked upward towards the sky and found it to be full of tree leaves. "Didn't come all the way out here to land us both in a ditch. Get your bandanna. Is there anywhere around here we can see the stars?"

* * *

They sat on the top of a grassy hill in relative blackness, overlooking the surrounding forest in all directions, with the lights of campfires slowly flickering away to nothing as people turned in for the night. The sky was bright with white sprinkles of starlight, thought he moon was too full to see the Milky Way clearly. Sandro eased off the helmet and looked around. He took a deep breath of cool, breezy air.

"So why are you in _Massachusetts?"_ the crazy girl finally asked as she tore the heads off of dandelions. "Aside from surprising the stuffing out of me, I mean!"

"My family took us here for my birthday," he chuckled and looked down at her. "I've been swimming, kayaking; we played soccer. We're practically just down the _street_...!"

"You guys are _in Hampshire county MA_? Everyone!?"

"Yup, in Northampton. We own a _farmhouse_."

And so had the turtles in her comic books, but not here! "Man," she shook her head in amazement, "You and I always have some crazy cosmic luck, don't we?" That was a truth. "We ought to have been Geminis instead of Virgos. Hey! You ever even been outside _Jersey City_ before?" she wondered.

"Not since I was a baby." He couldn't help but smile and smile and smile "I know you probably couldn't tell even if it was light out, but I got slightly _tan._ "

She laughed, but got a mischievous look to her. "Well, since you are here, brother dearest, can I have an extra present?"

He raised a brow. "What sort?"

She tilted her head and tapped her cheek. "A kiss, right here. Can I have one? Pretty please?"

He recoiled from her and then glowered. "No."

"Awww. Why not? Something on my face?"

"No, _I_ physically _can't_ kiss _anyone_. You stare enough, so you probably ought to have noticed my facial structure by now," he pointed out his own inhuman features. "Beaks don't pucker."

"What? _That's_ what's stopping you? Mikey just improvises! I was expecting you to shriek about cooties!"

"Wild," he growled, grumpy and awkward and teenagery again but somehow still feeling way better than anything he'd been going through the rest of the day. "Just let the stupid topic drop. I _can't_."

"Are you honestly telling me that when you're like twenty and have got beautiful ladies hanging all over you cause you're so handsome, that you think they're going to waste a moment of their time being confused by the specific logistical oddities of your turtle kisses? Pfft! Lemme level with ya, bro: Whether you're butting your nose into their hair or dragging your tongue down their necks, I think they'll successfully manage to translate all relevant details into-"

He hit her and he hit her _hard_ , clear across the back of the head and shoulder-blades, too.

"OW!" she shouted, cringing from him and covering her head. "O-Oww...! That really _hurt_! _Ow_! Who spit in your pizza?" She scooted away from him. "Yeesh, forget I _said_ anything, jerk... Didn't mean to make you so angry you wouldn't pull an honest _punch_ , just thought it would be _cute_...!"

That wasn't what she'd done, and she knew it! He glared at her. Then he glared at nothing. She rubbed her sore head and shoulder, and glared off at a different nothing.

The seconds ticked by.

Then he took in a deep breath through the nose, turned, and stuffed his snout into the side of her cheek. He made a quick, sharp, lighter version of that stupid 'kiss' noise, and then pulled back and looked angrily away from her again. There!

Wildcard was silent, but he felt her gaze slowly turn to look at him. He literally _knew_ when she started to smile, because by then he'd grown nervous and self conscious and flustered, and all the anger had melted out somewhere in between. His gaze twitched hesitantly over. She was watching him with very honest smile, one that stayed mostly in the green of her eyes. "Heh. Promise not to hit me again?" she hoped. He looked down in guilty, wordless apology, and then closed his eyes briefly—reflexively—as she kissed him upon the forehead.

"Happy Birthday to us, then," she hummed contentedly as she nestled into him.

Sandro put both arms about her, and snuggled her close. Out of some superstitious curiousity, he again picked up his phone. It was, of all times, _11:59 PM._ "... Happy Birthday to us," he agreed into her matching bandanna, exactly where he ought to be.

12:00 AM.

He turned off his phone. They watched the stars together for well over an hour, and one supposed it was sort of like fishing.


	52. Kinpōge

When Sandro turned back onto the graveled driveway of the old O'Neil farmhouse, it was probably close to two in the morning. He killed the engine about halfway down to the house, and then walked the bike the rest of the way. He thought he'd been pretty careful about this whole thing, but then moonlight and heat on the porch revealed that someone was waiting for him. Well. No avoiding that.

Sandro pulled off the bike helmet and continued forward. A faint snake of tobacco smoke wafted out to him, and the rosy light of a lit cigarette butt revealed _exactly_ who'd caught him. Raphael took one last drag on the cigarette, and exhaled smoke as he growled: "How was the _joyride_?"

Sandro hesitated, but then went to go park that Shellcycle exactly where he'd gotten it from His father's gaze tracked him across the lawn.

"Last I checked," Raphael smothered the remainder of the cigarette stick against the porch bench and stood slowly, "fourteen wasn't the _driver's license_ birthday."

Sandro eased the kickstand into place and took up the helmet. He breathed in deeply, and nodded to himself, and then turned around and approached the porch. He climbed up the stairs, kept his head low, and offered the helmet up to his father with both hands.

Raphael eyed him and then stepped forward to loom over him. "S'been _three hours_. The _hell_ d'ya have to say for yourself?"

The littlest turtle honestly thought about the question. He thought about the wind,the stars, and the freedom (and the successful journey); and then an insane giddiness surely overtook him, because Sandro started to grin, and once he'd _started_ he found he could not stop: The expression twitched and tickled at his mouth, until finally he had to lower his head more to try and make it as clear as possible that he really was trying to be subservient. "It was _really_ cool," he mentioned, because escaping _everything_ like that, on that bike, had been one of the most amazing and satisfying things he'd ever done.

Raphael stared at him and Sandro was _sure_ things would quickly take a turn for the worst. But then the older turtle stood straighter, and his glare twisted into a matching grin, and it almost seemed like he might _laugh_. Sandro dared to lift his head, hopeful and still smiling stupidly. "Yeah," his father half-groused, "Yeah I'll _bet_ it was." He reached forward and took the helmet, and touched Sandro's head in the same way humans might tousle hair. " _Get_ inside," he ordered with a roughly affectionate shove in the right direction.

"Hai," Sandro acknowledged, hurrying to do as he'd been told (and still grinning).

"Dis better _nevah_ happen again, by the way," Raphael instructed as he walked with him. "Ever. Ya got me?"

"Hai."

"Right. And dun tell ya mom."

" _Hai!_ "

* * *

Visiting Wildcard had worked some kind of magic, and Sandro was able to enjoy his birthday again. Maybe it was because he'd gotten to check up on her and see that she was behaving herself and enjoying her vacation; or maybe it was the comforting way the smell of her clung to his fingers for a few hours afterwards, as he slowly drifted off to sleep; or maybe driving off on that bike had simply been _exhilarating_ and helped him release all the negative energy he'd had pent up inside himself.

Whatever the exact source of the magic was, he woke up with a renewed interest in his presents and an eagerness to hang out with everyone before they had to leave on Monday. Grandpa O'Neil had gotten him a really expensive all-terrain RC Car, which which Shadow wanted to play with because Donnie wouldn't let her fly the helicopter drone (totally understandable, that). Sandro showed her how to work the controls and do all sorts of neat tricks, and then sat back to watch and laugh as the gator girls chased the vehicle around like excitable puppies.

Sandro swore he caught Raphael grinning over at him a few times for no reason at all, almost like he was a little _proud_ of him.

And Sandro sure felt a little proud when he saw it.

* * *

Leonardo led his family out of the house on a small procession that evening. They were carrying wrapped slices of cake, fresh fruit, candles, incense, and assorted cheeses.

Donatello waved for Sandro to hurry along, and then slipped a hand around the back of his shell. The boy had probably realized that they were going to pay their respects to Splinter, but he probably wasn't certain why doing so required a little journey. At home, they simply went to the shrine at the back of the dojo.

Their father had been killed on September 22nd, and Sandro had been born one year—to the date!—afterwards. Since visiting the ghosts of your ancestors was a rather _somber_ occasion that sort of ruined Birthday Cheer, and since it was also very bad luck to celebrate life on the same day one was mourning the dead, the family always made sure to move their little memorial services for Splinter one or two days after the actual anniversary.

Raphael had almost refused to participate the first few years because he'd found the idea of 'celebrating a death' depressing, but he'd eventually gone along with it doing so had proved necessarily therapeutic for all of them. It might have helped if they had known their father's actual birth-date, and could gather together on that day instead of this one. As it was, they made due.

Leonardo led them across the farmhouse grounds, to a very old oak tree hidden away on the back of the property. There they found their destination: an old grave at the foot of the tree, with a wooden headstone engraved with 'Father.' They swept and cleared the space about the grave, both to tend to it and to ensure they did not accidentally cause any forest fires They lit their candles, and made their little offerings to his spirit.

"This is where we buried him," he heard Donatello explain to Sandro. "Once we were able, I mean."

"He never got to see this place in person," Raphael mentioned. "He woulda liked it, though. We couldn'ta brought him anywhere but here and had it been right."

"Yo do you guys remember the _Cheese Phone_?" Mikey sighed fondly, and the sad gathering turned nostalgic and filled with gentle laughter as they traded stories with one another about their father's saintly patience.

Leo thought back to countless lessons in the dojo. Not just lessons of combat, either, but lessons of patience, serenity, brotherhood, and synergy. Splinter had loved them, loved them as his sown sons, and there had never been a day they hadn't _felt_ it. Most of their faith in themselves and in one another had been fundamentally built on that love.

The stories trailed off into wistful quiet, and it came time for them to make their way back to the house to get some sleep that they might enjoy their last day in Northampton. This procession, Leo did not lead. He lagged in last place behind all of his family members, and his stride slowed the father they traveled. Ten yards or so from the old oak tree, he stopped altogether and turned to look back at the little grave and its flickering candles.

Gravity, or something like it, dragged him back to stand before it. He stared through the headstone a long time, and slowly knelt.

* * *

The minutes stretched, and the candles burned, and Leo was so distracted he almost didn't hear someone heavy come up behind him. He knew it had to be Raphael, though, even before his brother sat down, turned about, and leaned back into him shell-to-shell. Leo closed his eyes. Some of the tension abated from him.

"You okay?" Raph asked him after around a minute had passed.

"I have been thinking about life, lately," Leo explained.

"In like a _philosophica_ l way, or like a mid-life-crisis-y way? Ya got a hankerin' for a shiny blue Ferrari or somethin?"

Leo chuckled. "Not exactly. But I have been thinking of taking a student into the dojo. It is too empty."

Raphael considered that. "Shadow's gettin ta be the right age." And she was as good as their niece.

"I have considered offering to train her, but part of me fears drawing Foot attention to Casey after all these years, after that silly hockey mask ended up doing such a fantastic job of keeping his identity secret. Aside from which, he has not given us any indication he wishes for Shadow to lead this sort of life. I think he hopes she will go to school."

"Yeah," Raph sighed in agreement. "The last thing anyone wants ta do is put him in the same situation April and us are in, always needin ta be on our guard. It'd be even worse for him cause he's got no way to protect Shadow except maybe to board her with us." Probably everyone in their family had lost sleep worrying about what would happen if the Foot ever got their hands on Shadow. "He's probably banking on her growin up ta be a cop."

The two were quiet for a bit, before Leo thought to explain what he'd originally meant. "The Foot have made attempts to mine the youth for fresh recruits many times. I could do likewise."

"What, like just training some street kid? Hnh. Ya said ya wanted ta fill the dojo, and that's a lot different from Foot recruiters goin' and startin martial arts clubs on the streets in old warehouses. Ya got my _son_ livin' with ya, and he's somethin' of our biggest secret."

"I was only thinking of hand-picking one or two," Leo murmured with wave of his fingers to dismiss the topic. "Perhaps you are right and I am just musing idly. Even were I to try, I might not find whatever it is I am looking for. I only wished to answer your question of what was on my mind."

Raphael was quiet for a long moment. "Ya been putting some thought to this for awhile now?"

"It's nothing. If I worried you, I apologize; I would not enact such a scheme without at least trying to seek your blessing."

"You should do it." Raph said.

Leo opened his eyes.

"I'm serious. If something's eatin ya so bad it's even on ya mind at da's grave, then maybe it's somethin ya actually need. Course you're so fucking _picky_ and _slow_ , I dunno how any kid could possibly get on ya damn shortlist, so ya better get busy lookin. Or just settle for workin with Donnie t'see if you two can at least agree some punk kid ain't gonna throw us under a bus. Maybe that way he'd only be _half_ as annoying as _you_ are."

"Then..." Leonardo hesitated.

" _Do_ it," Raph said. "Don't just _think_ about it, ya damn _glacier_. Look for this 'student' ya want so bad. Hell," he sighed, "if ya actually find one, maybe it'd be good for Sandro, finally havin' company 'bout his own age. Even _if_ he has a stick up his ass same as you."

Raphael was using the pronoun 'he' to refer to his hypothetical student, in the assumption it would be a boy.

After a moment, Leo closed his eyes again.

And smiled.

* * *

"Those two," Mother sighed.

Sandro looked behind them to realize his father and eldest uncle were missing. "Where are they?"

"Leo might be having a spot of melancholy," Donnie murmured. "Raph's usually the one who notices first. If he's around, that is."

Sandro's previous working model of the universe had not included any information about his father being _empathetic_ , so now that he was old enough to start bumping into the topic, he was a little uncomfortable trying to decide what to make of it. The first time had definitely made him _angry_ ; now he was just sort of _estranged_.It meant Raphael shared some traits Sandro would have preferred to attribute only to Michelangelo.

"Probably is," April shook her head. "And they'll sit and avoid the topic for about an hour or two and then come back and have a friendly spar. Heaven forbid they actually ever admit to missing each other." She turned and started continuing on their way back to the house.

"Uncle Leo's not the only one who misses him," Sandro almost tried to hint, but instead used far too tough a tone.

"No but it definitely hits him the hardest," Mother quipped a little wryly, as if stating something about the family everyone knew but never really talked about.

 _I meant me. Not Donnie and Mikey._ Sandro stared after her in critical bemusement for a moment and shook his head and shrugged and picked up the pace again. It wasn't entirely her fault that'd gone over her head; he'd sort of pitched it foul.

Donatello glanced back at him knowingly with half a smile, as if saying, 'Whoops, I saw that.' Mikey leaned near to whisper conspiratorially, "Sometimes your mom doesn't notice sticks right in front of her. The amount of times she's tripped while fleeing dinosaurs, aliens, and robot ninja zombies is kinda staggering...!"

"I _heard_ that," April reproached with a laugh. "What are we talking about _me_ for?"

* * *

They started packing up Monday at noon, and all of the primary drivers took naps. Grandpa O'Neil and Auntie Robyn both had planes to catch, and April, Raphael, and Casey all had 'work' the next day. And Leo might head out on a brief patrol just as soon as they arrived.

They offered Leatherhead and his girls a ride back to the city, but the large Aligator politely declined and explained that he would be taking his time and allowing the children to enjoy the wilderness for awhile before winter arrived. Upon hearing this they offered to him the continued usage of the farmhouse. He was honored, accepted, and pledged to keep it tidy and well-maintained, and to be out by mid October.

"You should come visit the Turtle Lair!" Mikey said, because he loved Leatherhead and now all the girls as well. "Around November or December? It'd be cool! Plus you guys'd get in out of the cold! It's rough for a reptile out there."

"You _should_ come," Donnie agreed, but while he'd warmed up to Leatherhead over the years, his motive was most probably to give those mutant gator babies a proper medical checkup (and maybe plant GPS trackers on them; Donnie was just paranoid about the proliferation of mutagen like that).

"I would not want to intrude," the alligator deflected politely.

"The invitation is genuine," Leo put in. "Should you and your girls need someplace to hole-up come winter, our home is open to you; and it's certainly open for any _visits_. The company would even cheer Sandro up, as he seems to have gotten better with small children lately." That was probably a jab at how badly Sandro had once gotten along with Shadow. Sandro smirked.

"I... I shall think about this offer. Thank you."

 _Twilight Sparkle_ (tehe, that name!) must indeed have been the Smart One, because amidst all the goodbyes and hugs the Purple Gator Girl suddenly bolted free of her contingent of sisters and came to cling alternately to Sandro and Michelangelo and make small unhappy chirps, as if she had realized that they might all be parting ways. It was _very_ cute, and her sisters eventually decided they'd come over and follow her lead. Sandro and Mikey hugged them all goodbye.

* * *

The car ride back home was as long as the ride out to Northampton had been, only this time vehicles left the motorcade instead of joining it. Grandpa and Robyn left in their rental car just as soon as they reached the highway, enroute to the airport. April and Raphael broke off to take an alternative highway back into NewYork, one that kept them from crossing any particularly dangerous bridges while everyone was sleepy-eyed and off their normal schedule.

The Jones' car stayed with them until they were almost at Jersey and then fell behind and went to stop off at a McDonalds for food and drink and to ensure they weren't accidentally seen beside anything that even _might_ have been the Shellraiser-in-disguise. Afterwards the turtles slowly wound about the city to reach their secret garage entryway.

"You a little sad it's over?" Mikey asked him sympathetically.

Sandro yawned and shrugged a little. "It was an awesome birthday," he told them happily. "Never gonna forget it."

"You looked a little out of things Saturday," Donatello mentioned. "Glad you pulled out of it."

Sandro smiled to himself and decided that was one secret he'd like to keep for now, not necessarily because he'd seen _Wild_ , but because he was still privately enjoying his dad's reaction

* * *

Joker slipped carefully along the warehouse piping, and crouched before the concrete parapet wall. It was about four-thirty in the evening. He waited, patiently, and sure enough he managed to catch sight of his daughter down amidst the industrial jungle below. She'd thrown up her hands and was pacing back and forward in clear agitation.

"You're late, Buttercup," he murmured to himself. "C'mon now, get underground." She paused, glared at nothing, kicked a loose chip of debris, and went back to pacing. "Sunset's in less than two hours, which means you are late for your rendezvous with Bat Turtle and Sunshine is probably starting to worry something's happened to you..."

Instead, he watched her climb up higher, that she might get a vantage point on the rest of the city. He hunkered down lower.

"Squirt..." he growled into his knuckles. He'd left that climbing gear with her for a reason; Keeping track of whether she took it with her or not let him monitor how crazy she was feeling. "You know I know _we both know_ that you're toying with throwing the towel in and running off to play hooky. But it's Tuesday, and your boyfriend's back, and you want to see him as soon as possible. C'mon, now... get underground."

She dropped down from her perch and went towards the northern edge of her rooftop. North, if she went far enough in that direction, was Foot territory. "Oh now _that_ is going too far," he hissed. "Don't get in trouble with _me_ , too. Turn your scrawny little butt around and walk yourself straight back to- _ooh_!" He ducked down and peeked.

With an unexpected blur of gray camouflage, a very _large_ mutant turtle materialized out of nowhere and perched upon the edge of her roof By the _barely_ noticeable katana sheathes across his gray-masked shell, this was the Bat Turtle himself.

"My, my." Joker shrank back. "He _knew...?_ " Better to get off the roof then and not be overseen. Better to not risk jeopardizing her chances. He'd double around to the northern side and just make absolutely sure she did not head into trouble town.

* * *

"You look indecisive."

Wildcard yelped and nearly overbalanced as she spun about to see the giant ninja who had just crept up beside her. He was squatting upon the air conditioners. "It's not even _nighttime_ yet!" were the first words she managed to fling out there.

"No? Hmm. Then I should be glad you have chosen a difficult roof to be espied from," Leonardo replied calmly. Holy Chalupa! He was only identifiable— _visible!_ —because of that blue bandanna. He _looked_ to be wearing the same catsuit and tabi she'd seen him in the day before, but the color was a mottled and rusty gray instead of black, and his skin and shell had been streaked with something ash-colored. He blended in to his background environment like he'd been painted into it!

"Wh-what are you even doing up here?" she wondered.

"I was concerned for my absent student and came to investigate her whereabouts. Might I ask you the same question? You are late. Do you plan on quitting Ninjitsu lessons?"

She frowned and tucked her chin. " N-no..."

"I see. Then were you perhaps planning to give me plenty of reasons to stop inviting you to them, or somesuch?"

How the _hell_ was he onto her before she'd even worked out her own thoughts!? This was like that weird insight about the Karai question all over again! "It's none of your business!" she blocked defensively.

He frowned. "Sandro seems to enjoy your presence during lessons." And therefore tolerating her was for The Good of Sandro!

"I'm not avoiding _him_! I was trying to get away with with not having to deal with _you_!"

Wildcard regretted the words the moment they fell out of her mouth. She couldn't tell if she felt like a suspicious hoodlum or if the butterflies churning in her stomach were guilt for saying something so nasty to him. She started writhing in place and then hugged herself and looked down at nothing. "I didn't think you'd care. Except to write me off. You didn't seem like you cared."

"About _you_?"

Her brain tripped but she shrugged. "Why should you? You don't know anything about me, I'm not important."

"I know more than you seem to think."

"Yeah well that just makes you a creepy stalker who follows teenager girls around."

"I know you saved my nephew's life the day he met you. I know you rushed to the aid of a complete stranger, and made a decision about who to help based entirely on who looked to be 'the bad guys.'" Her eyes widened at each word, and she looked slowly up towards the turtle in disbelief. "I know you killed three armed Foot, and felt absolutely nothing as you retrieved your knives from their bodies."

"How could you have been there?" she whispered. "You couldn't have. If you'd been there, he wouldn't have been in danger."

"You think so? You think I do not make mistakes?" Leo asked quietly, blue eyes piercing her. "I _misjudged._ I was too far behind. And I would have ended up carrying the decapitated corpse of my nephew back home to my family that night, and gotten on the phone with my brother to tell him his son was dead owed to _my failure_ , had it not been for the bravery and impulsiveness of one, small, reckless girl."

Wildcard stared up at him like a drowned puppy, with everything in her stomach tingling and frightened, and with a quiver in the tight knot of her arms.

"I know your father is not what he appears to be. That you live in a great deal of fear an uncertainty, and pride yourself in how _little_ it effects you; but, some days, the paranoia crawls up through the cracks of your self, and you are left wondering if you are slowly growing insane, and—if you are—whether you might possibly be enjoying it."

Her fingers slipped into her pocket as she shrank and shrank.

"I know you fiddle with that switchblade you carry whenever you are nervous, but that doing so it not entirely an innocent habit. In every situation you enter and without even _trying_ to, you visualize every point of escape, ever obstacle, and every person you'd have to stab, or startle, or simply explode in order to get past. You think about each way in which you might die or have to kill someone, but the only thing that really scares you is the idea of _being caught_ , restrained, captured, arrested or held down. It is _this_ fear which makes everything from practicing martial arts pins to receiving hugs difficult for you, and has limited your interpersonal contact with other people for years."

She was afraid. She was afraid down to her bones.

"And I know that that when you asked me about Karai, you were testing how much I knew about you. You were asking what I saw, and whether I saw some sort of lost cause or, worse, a _predestined monster_. But all that I see standing before me is a child. A very brave, and troubled, and very lonely child."

Heat and tears clouded her vision. The switchblade dropped from her fingertips and hit the concrete open and sharp enough to slice lime and stand upright where it had fallen. The ninja moved, and she bristled in terror and wiped frantically at her face–! But all he'd done was extend a small container to her, and as she hesitantly took it she realized it was the jar of marmalade with its insides all streaked in different colors. Her breath caught and then she felt large, three-fingered hands at her face, pushing up the bandanna and wiping away tears. She wasn't certain if she was _sobbing_ or just _leaking_ , but she did slowly manage to look up to where the enormous turtle was crouched over her with an expression of concern upon his face.

"Breath more deeply, lest you hyperventilate. It's okay, child. Everything is okay. Everything is going to _be_ okay. No one wishes harm onto you, and no one is going to take you from Sandro." She sniffled, and nodded. "If you truly do not wish for me to tutor you, I will take no offense."

"It's not that," she blurted. "I-I _do_." And she did.

Leo nudged her chin up. "Then listen... Before I agree to teach you, I require something in exchange from you, something symbolic of trust, commitment, and authenticity. This is because I have no wish to devote my _all_ into the development of a student who will then turn about and walk away a week later. Heading _north_ , of all directions."

"I don't have anything to give," she mumbled. "What did you want?"

"Your name," Leo said. "Give me your name, and I will trade you a name for yourself in Japanese."

She stared through him a moment, and then at him, and then the many trembling things inside her seemed to still. "Buttercup," she said into the resonant silence.

He studied her face for a moment and then nodded. " _Kinpōge_ ," he called her, and then reached up to gently tug the bandanna back into place and to tighten the ties. "From now on, in the dojo, that is your name. Not grasshopper, Wildcard, Anastasia, Mini, or She-Casey; Just _Kinpōge_."


	53. Stable as a Mountain

Let it never be said that Wildcard had passed up an opportunity to bum piggyback rides off world-famous super heroes; When Leonardo knelt and gestured that she could climb up onto his shell for the trip back down to ground level, she did exactly that! Only now it wasn't to be cute or funny. It was using an excuse to clingto him and maybe calm down a little.

This person had accepted her in a very deep and powerful way, and wiped tears from her face as if she were something precious that needed looking-after. Maybe Sandro's vocabulary would have contained strong enough words to describe all the things that had just done to her head, but hers didn't. Instead she bunched her arms around his collar and neck, and the tips of that worn blue bandanna were long enough to flick across her whenever he turned his head. Physical contact felt like some strange form of shelter.

She held on tight.

* * *

The manner in which Leo traversed fire escapes, pipes, narrow decorative molding, and sheer brick walls on the way to his sewer entrance of choice was both effortlessly strong and incredibly nimble. Carrying her didn't overbalance him, and he could wall-run and slow-fall like he planned to star in the next Prince of Persia movie. Sandro lacked this sort of agility, and Wildcard made a mental note to bring that up to someone, eventually.

Blue Turtle seemed to be giving their surroundings a sharp-eyed overview as he dropped down to the sewage entrance of choice and set her down. He gestured she should descend first, and followed immediately afterwards. With the manhole cover replaced above them everything turned pitch black, but these shafts were solid tubes of concrete for at least eight feet till they reached the sewer proper, and she could use the ladder rungs easily enough by touch alone.

As it turned out, Leo had not been the only concerned party.

"Did you find her?!" an anxious Orange Turtle called from below, and Wild's heart soared.

"Mhmm. She was trying to ditch us," Leo tattled unexpectedly from above her.

" _Hey_!" she protested, startled and blind.

" _Mini!"_ Michelangelo might as well have had his heart cut out.

"'Ditching!' Oh, I'll show you _ditching_! Surprise Trust Exercise!" Wildcard called down into the sewers, and then pushed back from the ladder and released into a free-fall. Weeeeee- _Flump!_ An Orange Ninja sprinted up to get under her in time and caught her bridal style in both enormous arms. _Hehe!_ If she was going to be teeny all her life, then she might as well make the best of it, right? "Hi Sunshine!," she snickered. "I can't see a _thing._ "

"Omigod and you _still_ jumped!?" She got a blind forehead nuzzle in exchange for her faith in him, and immediately had no idea why she'd ever hesitated about getting into the sewers as fast as possible. "D'awww...! Nobody else trusts me with important stuff like that! Seriously, Donnie always makes fun and says I'd drop stuff."

"That is because you have dropped a lot of very important 'stuff,'" Leo muttered as he jumped to the ground beside them (with an enviable lack of broken limbs).

"Not since forever ago!" Mikey argued, and then Wild was getting flipped over Orange Turtle's shoulder for another piggyback. Whoopie! She bundled her arms around his neck from behind. "Mini, did Leo tell me the truth or is he lying to me, were you really going to ditch us?" he pouted.

"Naawww, only the mean old teacher face," she corrected and successfully smooched his bandanna through the inky blackness, "but he apologized for being a doo-doo head, so we're cool now."

"I _knew_ it!" Orange Turtle whooped triumphantly. "See? Told you she'd never leave us!"

Leo cleared his throat. "Mikey specifically laid the blame for your tardiness on me being a 'doo-doo head.' Those were his exact words."

Wildcard lifted a hand, and met Michelangelo's proffered hi-five/three without even needing to see it was there. Much celebratory hooting was had.

* * *

Sandro must have been pacing just inside the door, because he spun to them as they entered. "You're _late_!" he accused.

"So everyone keeps telling me! And here I thought I was still an hour and a half early!"

"Ah," Donatello called wryly to her, "but he waits for you at the door, nearly wagging his tail in _anticipation_."

"I do _not!_ I only-!" Huff. "Why wouldn't you just come as early as you could!?" Sandro stomped exasperatedly.

"Well maybe I was _busy_ , Mr. Clingy, ever think of that?" Wildcard teased him with a crocodile grin as Mikey let her down. "Living segments of my life above ground, which have nothing whatsoever to do with you!"

"Mini- _Meanie_!" Mikey gave her a reproachful pat upon the head. "He's gonna need some aloe vera for that burn!"

Wildcard snickered and then hopped blithely over to her death-glaring counterpart, and leaned in to put her arms around his waist. But instead of hugging her, Sandro leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked away! "Psst," she whispered, "it was a lie; I have no life!" He scoffed. "Sanddrroo," she whined, tugging at his arms and then standing on her tip-toes to hug him about the neck instead. "I'm _sorry_ , and I love you, and you're _my only friend_ , now _hug me_! Pleeeaaase? _Pretty pleeasse?_ "

Sandro smirked to himself, glanced at her, and then leaned over and squeezed her off the ground. That settled both of them down. Firecracker hysteria which had built up along her nervous system now melted out, exchanged with earth and clay wherever he touched her. Maybe the same thing happened in reverse to him, and he felt energized?

"Children," Leonardo called. Wild looked and saw that his clothing was now black again instead of gray. Whatever he'd been streaked with was gone, too. "We are already inexcusably late for this morning's lessons, and one of you still needs to change into appropriate practice clothes."

* * *

Sandro knew something was different the moment his uncle asked if he would be alright practicing on his own today. He answered an unhesitating, 'Yes!'

The weird, strained, and icy distance Leo had repeatedly reinstated between himself and Wildcard looked to have melted. Course, maybe it was too soon to cry victory; Uncle Leo was only just finally _looking at her consistently while addressing her_ , which had previously been an all-time record-breaking low on the records books for how he treated people; but Leo _had_ apparently gone out with Mikey to find her that morning, and that must have meant he was concerned.

"Should I work on my stances again?" Sandro heard his companion inquire.

"No, you are going to be practicing with a wooden staff today, Kinpōge-kun," Leo explained, shattering all patterns of reticence with her.

'Kinpōge?' Sandro wondered, glancing over at them as Leo made his way to the weapons rack.

"Working on only one narrow set of fundamentals is good for training muscle memory," his uncle explained to her, "but it reduces the scope of understanding if abused, and limits a person's ability to adapt. Besides, you seem a naturally impatient creature, so hopping about from subject to subject may actually help you focus _more_."

"It seems you've seen this before," she drawled with shuttered eyes and a bemused expression, and it seemed she no longer felt threatened or stressed by him.

"Mm, yes, courtesy of the one you've named 'Sunshine.'" Leo passed her a staff. "Most of our practice equipment is for individuals taller than yourself, so I will order some new things to suit you. In the mean time, our spares will have to do."

"It's not my fault I'm vertically challenged," muttered someone who might never truly get over that.

"Did I say so? Hmm. I shall have to watch myself, clearly I am a loose cannon with taunts today."

Sandro paused in his exercises, and grinned to himself. Uncle Leo sounded genuinely happy to see her.

* * *

Michelangelo hurried quietly up behind where Donatello leaned in the hallway, and joined him in peering out past the threshold of the dojo.

Someone had clearly lost respect for someone else mid-lesson—or at least wanted to test their new boundaries—and now Leo was balanced in a squat, catching, blocking, and deflecting every single attack his miniature assailant could throw at him. One-handed. Without moving any other muscle in his body.

Wildcard eventually grew quite cross with his serene unflappability, and decided to pounce upon him, but he caught her by the nape of her outfit and gently tossed her backwards. She went rolling, picked herself back up, walked back to him, and then plopped herself down and put her elbows on her knees and her chin upon her hands.

"Okaaay, I'm listennning," she pouted.

"Kneel, please, Kinpōge-kun."

She mimicked him snidely and then yelped as he picked her up and tossed her away again. At least she was wearing the training gear they'd gifted her so that no elbows or knees got bumped in the process. "Ya know, maybe I just won't come back!" she hollered from off screen.

"Hmm, my maple bonsais do need watering," was his unbothered reply.

She stomped back and glared at him. Then with a great eye-roll and an exasperated sigh, she sloppily knelt. "Yes, Sensei," she droned obnoxiously.

" _S_ _eiza._ Shins beneath you, toes together, hands upon your thighs. Were you raised in a barn?"

"No. Wait, does a warehouse count?"

"Ah, rebellious child, if you wish to be excused from today's lesson, you need merely ask. Rest assured you will not hurt my feelings; I now can think of at least seven trees I could be pruning."

"Oh I'm sure you know of some very interesting _paint you could be watching dry_ ," she sassed as she picked herself up into a neat _seiza_ posture. "There. Good enough for Mr. Perfectionist?"

With nowhere to go, nowhere to be, and not the slightest trace of impatience or tedium visible in his eyes, their eldest brother merely smiled. Almost smugly, even, as if playing a game he knew he'd already won, and utterly content to wait around for the outcome. "It'll do," he agreed.

* * *

"Does Leo have a magical color-changing ninja outfit?" Wildcard asked them over breakfast, somewhere in-between forkfuls of hashbrowns bathed in ketchup.

"It's not magical," Donnie explained as he resupplied her plate from his griddle. "It's an application of ultra low power analog signal processing and fiber optics, courtesy of a few chips and tricks I pilfered from Kraang drones. Runs off of ambient electromagnetic waves. Neat, huh?"

" _You_ made it!" she marveled, sounding awestruck.

"Well the fabric, anyway," he preened a little. "Boy was _that_ a difficult experiment. Had to get the magnetism, electric current, and acidity all just right while baking it at far, far, far too many Kelvins. Never did get around to making more of it, but the prototype ended up amounting to sufficient surface area for one outfit and a couple embellishments."

"Wow..." she admired. "I wish _I_ could come up with stuff like that..."

Sandro leaned near her elbow. "What's a _Kelvin_?" he whispered.

"Unit of temperature," she whispered back. "There aren't negative Kelvins, zero is _absolute zero_ , like if all the electrons dropped off and rolled away cause there was just so little energy."

Donnie glanced over to her and paused in washing the counter. _Hmm._ Wildcard's vocabulary—heavy on the sciences and weak in the liberal arts—had finally piqued his curiousity. Her logical reasoning skills seemed poor at times, but he was starting to like the effect she had on his family members _,_ and that was making him less skeptical about _her_.

"Oh, hey, I know I covered everything in ketchup," she abruptly felt the urge to explain, "but that's totally just my custom when dealing with fried potatoes of any variety, it's not an insult, I promise! Your food is always exquisite!"

"You could say," Leo leaned over her, "' _Gochisou sama,'_ to thank a person for their cooking."

 _"G-gochi-sou...?"_ she blinked up at him.

He nodded. "And then _'sama.'_ _Gochisou sama._ "

 _"Gochisou sama!"_ she repeated brightly, and Donnie smiled.

"Correct." Leo patted her head and stood back up, and she beamed as radiantly as if she'd just been given a gold star, an Olympic medal, and a brand new kitten. Leo circumnavigated the table to come up and fill a thermos with hot water for tea on patrol. "Teach her Japanese, Donatello," he requested with just the two of them in the kitchen.

"A few words here and there?" Purple Turtle wondered slowly. "Or...?"

"Perhaps it would win points with her father if she formally took up the study of a foreign language," Blue suggested. "April might like to learn she is not merely interested in Ninjitsu."

Well now there was an idea; Even the fact that the children did their homework together had won points with Donnie, and both parents did seem to be concerned with academia. Hmm. "I'll suggest it to her. No promises. I uh packed some food for you, by the way, it's there on the counter top."

Leo paused what he was doing, stared, and then twisted about to see if this was indeed the case. "You have not made me a brown paper bag lunch in _years_."

"Yes, well, you really should be eating more than twice daily. And, by the way," he raised his voice, "I am _this close_ to licking all the frosting off the Wildberry Poptarts and putting them back in the box to punish you for all the times you finish off the last one and neglect to place them back on the shopping list."

(" _Ew_!" Sandro, Wild, and Mikey all complained from the dining table, though Wildcard immediately added ' _Nice_ one!')

"... I shall endeavor to be more sensitive in the future. Thank you."

* * *

"Kinpōge-kun," Leo called as he finished donning his katana again at the doorway. "Have you decided whether you plan on continuing your study of Ninjitsu?" That almost didn't sound like a segue, so perhaps Leo was earnestly inquiring as to the answer.

"Mnnhmm!" his new student hummed past a mouthful of breakfast.

"Then tomorrow you will be on time," he instructed.

The child managed to swallow her food without choking on it, grinned, and waved to him. "Bye Sensei! Have a fun patrol!" His stare lingered on her a moment longer as he headed out the door, to suggest she'd end up regretting it (and thus likely be bored out of her mind) if she was tardy. He left, and the door closed behind him.

"That's just the _strangest_ name to give her," Donatello finally decided aloud, and Michelangelo laughed in agreement.

"'Kinpōge?'" the girl asked them. "Why? What's it mean?"

"It's a _flower_ ," Sandro was equally bemused. "Only he's adding 'kun' to the end, which is neither cute nor respectful, just kinda... _boyish_ , honestly. Like you could use 'kun' for me, Sandro-kun, but we'd probably use 'chan' for you. You'll hear Donnie say that, he calls Mikey 'Barbarichan' all the time."

"It's _adooorabbbleezzz_ ," Michelangelo crowed, leaning over Wildcard from behind and tickling her. "It's a tiny, tiny yellow flower! So _kawaaaaiiii Kinpōge-taaannn!_ "

"No _YOU'RE_ kawaii!" she fought back with that most juvenile of retorts, slinking into her chair to get her feet and knees up to use as weapons. "No more making fun of me being small! RAWR! Rawr rawr rawr! I'm _not cute_! I'm a dinosaur and I'mma bite your fingers off! _RAWR!"_

"You look more like some kind of rabid hamster to me," Sandro disagreed as he leaned over to take stock of her claim.

Wildcard apparently decided this was cause enough to kick Sandro's plate of food into both of their faces, and then of course all hell broke loose. Donatello sighed at the three children he was tasked with babysitting, and then dropped his dish rag and went to go get the broom and floor mop for them, to a backgroundchorus of 'STAND STILL SO I CAN KILL YA FASTA!' 'That's too easy, catch me first!' and 'Run faster, Mini! He's right on your tail!'

* * *

Michelangelo boosted Mini up to sit beside the kitchen sink and got out some soap and clean wash cloths, while poor Sandro had to go change into clean clothing owed to maximum coverage by bacon and egg grease. Donatello had just waved his hands in the air and said something about irrepressible children, and then probably stalked off to the lab to program something.

"So I missed you," Mini blurted out of nowhere as the two of them washed their faces and hands.

Mikey looked at her.

She smiled up at him. "Did you guys have a great party?"

Crraaaapppp. Raph and April didn't know about her yet, so of course it hadn't made any sense to invite her to the farmhouse, but then maybe nobody thought about how they'd left poor Mini out of her best friend's big day like she was a leper or something. Man, come to think of it, hadn't her own birthday party been basically deserted?

"I guess so," he grinned awkwardly. "Did, uh, you have fun camping in the wild outdoors?"

"I guess so!" she teased. "I caught some red sliders and pretended they were my friends, but I think they only loved me for my minnows. Country turtles are nothing like urban ones. They don't even like cheese, what's with that?"

Mikey stared at her with the faucet water running forgotten beside them. He looked down at his hands, glanced behind to make absolutely sure Donnie wasn't there, and then leaned over and scooped the girl up. The quick, rigid way she scrambled to clasp her arms around his neck told him a very long story about her troubles.

"What did Leo say to you?" he grumbled.

"I like Leo." She breathed deep as if to bolster herself. "I dunno even _why_ I like Leo, and I still do."

But she was quivering a little, and his heartbeat kicked up a notch or two. Donnie was _wrong_ : It wasn't crazy or bad to want to take care of a kid, even if it wasn't your own kid. It _couldn't_ be. Michelangelo shut his eyes tightly, turned his face into her hair, and squeezed her to him and gently rocked her side to side.

"S'okay," he vowed. "You don't always gotta be funny, tough, and lovable for everyone else. You can mess up. You can get sad, or afraid, or lonely, or say the wrong things. You don't gotta be the adult for me or hold up a brave face. No one here's gonna leave you."

Mini's face was red with emotion. He sat on the edge of the sink and rubbed her back, until he'd coaxed the first sniffles and huffs out of her.

* * *

When Sandro got back out of his room he found that Michelangelo was sitting on the kitchen counter and holding an absolutely _bawling_ Wildcard against his collar like she was just a toddler. _His_ toddler, even. Sandro's eyes widened and he slowed to a freeze, looking hesitantly from one of them to the other. Holy _crap._

Mikey gave him a tight smile and raised a finger to his mouth to suggest his nephew stay quiet for just a bit, maybe in the hopes that Wildcard would let all the bad energy out in one big deluge. Boy was it a _deluge._ Sandro swallowed, sat back on his heels, and clasped his hands nervously together in front of himself to wait without alerting her to his presence.

It... um, it was a little weird to watch this. Firstly because he'd never seen Wild so emotional _,_ and secondly because protecting her was _Sandro's_ job. He sort of expected to feel jealousy, but that faded away as a realization slowly dawned on him. He stood a little straighter, because he didn't have to carry his burdens—or hers—alone.

Wildcard's sobs eventually trailed off into whimpers and sniffles, and she finally started wiping at her face in some effort to compose herself. Sandro breathed easier, and quietly came up to join them. "Wild?" His voice cracked a bit, and she twitched.

"Give her a minute or two to rest, San-san," Mikey chuckled, rubbing her back as he slipped off the sink and walked over to the pantry. "That was a hella good cry right there."

"S-sorry," she hiccuped. "I sh-shouldn't've..."

"N'aww, Mini, hush. You were my baby girl within three puns of meeting you." Mikey picked out a packet of dark chocolate cocoa powder and a handful of fresh marshmallows. "If Donnie and Leo don't think so, they can suck eggs." He settled her down on her own two feet, poured some hot water and the cocoa into a mug, and put the mug into her hands.

Wildcard stared at her cup and the marshmallows floating in it. "I already have a dad," she reminded Orange without lifting her head.

" _And_ a sensei. Hmm-hmm-hmm. Do you have a mom?" Mikey questioned as he leaned over and placed his hands on his knees just to peer at her.

Wild's eyes widened at him. Then she stumbled forward and hugged him again, and probably tried very hard not to spill any scalding hot cocoa on him. "I love you, New Mom!" she blabbered in wounded hysteria.

But Michelangelo pulled her into that hug and said solemnly, "I love you too," as he touched his forehead to hers. Wild went still like she'd been transfixed, and a long moment passed in silence. Then Mikey smiled and kissed her brow. He briefly cupped her face in both hands, still smiling, and then let go and and turned to re-include a very startled Sandro (who had been uncertain how serious and/or private this moment was or whether he ought to intrude).

"Okay, listen up!" Orange explained brightly, "You two need to talk to one another! And I mean _talk_ , like heavy stuff, like whatever you don't say in front of us grown-ups." At _that_ instruction, Sandro quickly hurried over to clasp his dazed companion to his side. _Thud_. There, much better. "As for _me_ , I'm going to go make sure Donatello stays in the lab for the next solid hour, and then when I'm done we are going to do an awesome uber birthday story sharing party. Complete with leftover cake. _Capisce?"_

Sandro bobbed his head and Wild did likewise, and Mikey grinned and ruffled her hair and patted his head, and then stood himself back up again and went to exit the kitchen. But he turned back and added,

"Oh, and really, give her a couple minutes to calm down first. Like, you can totally measure it by half a cocoa cup. Everyone is _always_ better by half a cocoa cup."

"I... I got it, uncle Mike," Sandro cleared his throat.

"Right." He winked and hopped off to go bother Donatello, leaving Yin and Yang to peer after his departure.

* * *

Sandro sat his dazed companion down on the edge of his bed so that she could nurse on that hot mug of cocoa while he backtracked to ease his door shut. Of all the possible Wildcardsplosions, crying into a very nonjudgmental adult might have honestly been the best way to go. He squatted down to get a better look at her face. She showed him her half-emptied cup of cocoa.

"What's in ya head right now?" he asked, just to be sure.

"It feels kinda empty," she admitted.

Man, _that_ was a fantastic springboard for a joke if Sandro had ever heard one. Instead, he got up to retrieve a plump little crocodile from where she'd been chilling out in her pool in the corner of the room. "Here we go," Sandro smirked. "This always makes _me_ feel better."

"So faaaaatttt..." A successfully distracted Yang hugged on Lady Smiles like the latter was a baby. "I wuvvv herrr...!"

"Well she'll at least tolerate crazies," Sandro grinned as he took a seat beside the two of them. "I'm sorry ya ended up havin ta cry so hard. I um shoulda been a better brother."

"I thought you did a great job," Wildcard confessed with a small smile his way. "You stole your dad's bike and risked life, limb, and lecture to come stargaze with me just so I wouldn't be alone. You even gave me a birthday kiss."

"And a birthday punch," he recalled fondly, sifting her hair gently to see if he could spy that bruise. She giggled. "You wanna... um, talk, maybe?"

"Pfft," Wild roiled her eyes. "I've only ever told you anything because you bullied it out of me. You think that's changed just because Mikey keeps managing to get my eyes to water?"

"So it ain't the first time he's calmed you down," Sandro frowned. "Well _alright then,_ thanks for clarifyin _._ This about the way ya dad wrecked ya house a few weeks back, maybe?"

"Sorta, but only cause it followed so fast on the heels of something else." She pursed her lips thoughtfully and he got the impression she might try to feed him half a truth. But then she blew out a breath, set down her mug, got Lady Smiles off her shoulder, and faced him head on.

"Okay, so it's like this," she raised her hands: "I can remember being five years old, waiting for the bus on the very first day of school, and then," she snapped her fingers, "he was throwing knives and swearing so I had to cover my ears. When he ran out of knives he went on to dishes, and then onto appliances and furniture. I knew he wasn't mad at me! So I wasn't scared... I just watched. When it was over, and he was just standing lost in the middle of it all, I got out of my chair and went up to him, took his face in my hands and told him, 'It'll be okay, Daddy,' and I hugged him. And that was when he'd calm down."

Sandro frowned, shuttered his eyes, and folded his hands in his lap to listen, wordlessly encouraging her to continue.

"Here's the thing though," she leaned forward and raised her fingers to indicate something small. "He _knew_. Don't you see? I'd easily have forgiven him, but he wouldn't _let_ himself get away with it. he older I got, the less and less I saw them, till I'd honestly forgotten they were even a thing." Her eyes searched his face, as if pleading with him to understand.

"That actually sounds really rough," Sandro admitted, but her shoulders slumped. "No, listen. I mean it would be rough to have anybody exploding near you, yeah. But to know how strong their growth game was, to know they were honestly working to improve the situation for your sake all the time, that almost sounds worse. Like, you'd have to soak all that blast damage, but then you don't even have the recourse of venting at them."

"Y-Yeah." She grew hopeful again and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm scared that'll be me one day," she admitted, "I mean, I'm scared of way worse stuff than that, but I already sorta 'explode.'"

Sandro leaned back with a smirk. "Heh. Let's be honest, if one of us is gonna end up tearing a room apart one day in a fit of anger, it'll probably be me. I'm even strong enough to pull it off."

She slowly grinned. "But you're so _neat_ and _clean_ ," she protested.

"Have totally imagined putting that desk through a wall," he pointed. "Scares me to think about, actually. Enough that I get angry at myself for getting angry..."

"Seen that!" she agreed.

"Yeah. But you aren't done spilling the beans," Sandro reminded her, with a poke at her chest. "You said your dad's latest fit came on the heels of something worse. Explain. And dun try to dodge."

"I'm not dodging! I'm... honestly still figuring out some of the stuff, cause I learned a lot while it was happening," she rubbed at the back of her neck. "You need some background if it's to make any sense."

"I don't think I do. You shouldn't be givin me the synthesized palatable version, you should be tellin me exactly what happened and how it made ya feel."

"Not happening," she shot a glare his way. "It's not what it looks like on the face of stuff."

"Give me the play-by-play," Sandro growled, leaning over her, "cause if I let ya sit here justifying your da's actions to me, ya could ramble on for the better part of a million years and not be done."

Her eyes glinted sharp and green at him, and he knew she was coiling up to bite. "Look, unlike somebody, I'm not the one who has a strained relationship with my—"

Sandro lunged at her, grabbing her shoulders and slamming her back into the headboard. " _No_." He enunciated the word and stared her down, her with her grit teeth and the light sneer of her lip. "Tell it like it is, in all the naked ugliness. Tell it like you'd tear it out of me: that I feel my dad hates me and resents my conception, that my mom treats me like a goddamn prize-winning pet that she can keep in a closed tank and drop in food flakes every once in awhile."

She searched his face. He stared, stared, _stared_ , until finally she crumpled, yielded, and dropped her head. "My dad followed us on the night of the hurricane. He saw me give us up to Mikey. I didn't know till we got back to the house. He..." she shook her head. "He shoved me inside and started shouting at me, cursing at me, and he was pacing and screaming at the top of his lungs. He demanded to know if I was stupid, if 'there was even an ounce of sense in my fucking head,' callng me asinine, idiotic, manipulative, and shouting that the only thing keeping me safe was that I don't exist."

Sandro slowly released the pin and sat back to see that all the fight had gone out of her. "And then?" he growled.

She pulled her knees to herself. "He opened a knife," she said as if knives were nothing, "and asked whether he needed to play horror movie villain with the neighbors and cut them to pieces, if that was what it would take to make me listen: If he needed to make me _afraid_ of him." She twiddled her toes in and out as she walked, and rubbed her fingers together restlessly. "He, um, he had this blue-hooded jacket on, and I knew why but I touched him to make sure. And my fingers came away slicked with white and red paint.

"And I knew, _I knew_ , that for him to be wearing that face meant all the chips had been down. If one of your uncles had tried to corner me, even just to ask who I was, he would have killed them, or tried. He would have done anything to get them away from me." She sucked in a shuddering breath, and looked straight down. "And it would of been my fault."

Sandro took a long, long moment to swallow every scrap of anger he had. "None of that sounds like your fault," he said, when he could breathe.

"It's a person's fault if they don't take into consideration their own unique circumstances, and somebody _dies_ ," she disagreed. "My dad's imperfect but I knew I was pushing him."

"It's cause he's scared of losing ya, ain't it?" Sandro distilled reality from all that darkness. She flinched, and he nodded to himself. "Kindergarten, coming down here, the hurricane. I bet when you were young he was freakin' out at every tiny bit of you he had to let go of. But then he grew and you grew, until finally now it takes something big to get to him. The 'could lose you forever' sort of things. Hell, sometimes he even manages to handle those like they're nothin, cause he wants ta be a da instead of a psycho, murder-happy, helicopter parent."

She peeked up at him weakly, and he knew he had come to the understanding she actually needed.

"Ya dad calmed down after that knife-wavin thing, didn't he?" Sandro knew. " _You_ calmed him down. And then he felt _ashamed,_ cause he knew he had no way to make shit like that up to ya."

"How... How could you possibly tell that, from where I left the story?" she sputtered. "How could you...?"

"Wild... There _ain't a doubt in my mind_ that he loves ya. Okay? I _know,_ I've _seen it_. But you can love him and _still_ get pissed as fuck when he drops the ball on ya. You can admire him _and_ still be angry that you're a structural support element in the life of someone who oughtta support you. Feelings are real, and they don't all gotta be one way or another. You can love him and still need help."

A shudder ran through her but they were together and on the same page. "Like how you love _your_ dad?" she croaked.

Sandro let out all that swallowed anger in a big, quiet sigh. "Yeah. Sorta. Less pecker waving in your problems, I'd imagine." He nudged her shoulder. "D'you feel guilty for lovin on my family, or for being a little lonely when you've only got your dad around?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe don't be." He scooted closer to her to rest an arm around her back. "Your da's not merely _allowing_ you visit us, he's _sending_ you. He's smart. He knows damn well you're lonely, and even that you might need help. And maybe it's a bit of a sacrifice on his part, no longer having you all to himself... but he never wanted that in the first place, or else he wouldn't have sent you to school or tried to give you a normal life."

She teetered over and leaned into him, and he held her there.

"Heh. Mikey makes sense but... You must be able to _smell_ your relationship nutritional deficiencies or somethin, if you somehow picked _Leo_ on accident. There's some _stability_ for ya, stable as an effing _mountain_."

"And you," she mumbled, much too weak to dispute whether either aforementioned turtle truly liked her. "I picked you."

"What are you talking about?" he groused as he nestled in to snuggle with her for a bit. " _I_ picked _you_." He reconsidered. "Then again, maybe so did _they_."


	54. Turtle Cookies

Sandro did eventually notice that he was reclined on a bed with a girl cuddled up against his side. Their legs were kicked up together, their arms were interlaced, and he was resting his head on top of hers; they had the door closed and were completely alone with one another. Objectively speaking, this was probably the sort of thing parents nightmared about. Well, it was a good thing Donatello was distracted, then.

He felt her fingertips start counting scutes down the side of his shell, and he grinned. "Tell me some stories about yourself," he requested, seeing as her brain had returned to its normal resting state of absurdly curious. "Since we finally have the time."

"Okay. What would you like to hear?" she asked as she gathered her hands back to herself and eyed them like they needed a stern talking-to.

"Anything you wouldn't normally feel comfortable sayin," he suggested. "C'mere, I'll braid your hair. It'll remind me not to knock your lights out the next time you bait me, you've still got bruises."

"Ooh! Yes _sir!_ " she complied, scrambling over his leg to sit between his knees. He loosened her banana and let it drop about her throat, and shook out her hair to start dividing it into sections. "Hmmm. Well I'm incredibly honest! When it comes to me, the devil's in the details. Once upon a time, I told you I had a friend whose mother never lets her outside. Do you remember that?"

"Sounds familiar. Her name was 'Willow,' right?"

"Yup! Lemme retell that story with all the details in place: I was skipping around Gotham's sewers one day, flashlight in hand, when I heard a girl crying. I went to investigate, and found her living in the ruins of an old sunken ballroom which someone had filled with plants. So I called to her through a rusted metal gate which seemed to be the only potential point of entry, and she was very excited to meet me. She said the gate was for her protection, and that her mother would kill me if I was found there, so with that in mind we kept our voices really low and just whispered to one another. I learned that her name was Weeping Willow, and that she was about one year older than me and loved Harry Potter."

"I _swear_ , Wild... the random encounters you have with super people could be generated by _mad-lib_. Just randomly select nouns and verbs, and _pop_ that somehow managed to actually happen to you." Sandro shook his head in disbelief. "That poor girl, I thought _I_ had it bad. So, _plants_? Is she the daughter of Poison Ivy?"

"I didn't actually ask, but that was the conclusion both me and Dad jumped to. Ivy hasn't been seen in over a decade, but maybe she was just taking maternity leave?"

"Hmph." He shook his head again. "What about the story behind how you got that batarang?"

"Gee, I don't remember that extremely well. It was when me and dad were living in New York, so I must have been about six? We'd just been on the run from city to city, so I know something happened when I was five. My dad used to be in the PTA!"

Sandro dragged her head back to do a proper double take at her. "The _Parent Teacher Association?"_

"Oh he _loved_ it, and we had amazing school parties! I remember that!" Sandro raised a brow, but then reflected on how this sort of made sense. "But he only joined it once, just that one year, just that one school. You know, I wonder if that's where I got it from. I sort of do the same thing: I give up."

"What d'ya mean, 'give up?' You're hellishly stubborn."

"Well the first couple places I went to school, I always met new friends and liked all my teachers and joined clubs and was happy. But somewhere along the line, I stopped wanting any of it, I stopped starting over from nothing, I stopped trying. Everything was always changing, and new things were interesting, but there was no real point in _investing myself._ And by the time we settled somewhere long term, I was already _done_ , it was _over,_ I'd never have a home or friends, teachers or teams, and that was just how it was: my life was outside at midnight, in the wind, in jumping and climbing and breathing..."

"Ya mean ya'd grown _resigned_." Sandro frowned as he started down the tail of the braid. "Like you'd numbed those parts of yourself so it'd keep away the burn of losin people over and over again."

"I... never thought of it as 'losing' them at the time, but maybe you're right. You probably _are_ right, cause the first time you ever hugged me I remember thinking I was old enough to have a say in _keeping_ you."

"If ya felt that way, numb all the time, why was meetin' me any different to ya?"

"I don't really know," she twisted to look back at him wonderously, "but the instant I heard your voice, I became so excited to meet you, it must have boiled out from inside and melted all the ice for one last 'try.'"

"My _voice_?"

"Yeah, I could tell you were young, and I could tell you were _strange,"_ she said with a bright flash of smirk. "Something clicked in my head, and I was like: I wanna know who this is, and _please god_ let them like me. I was _so sure_ you were going to evaporate on me, I even kept giving you the chance to do so! I went repeatedly back to that counter for food, and you could have dodged me at any one of those times. But you _stayed_...! You have no idea how fast people normally dislike me!"

"You seriously showed up out of nowhere, killed three people in the blink of an eye, saved my life, yelled at me for being ungrateful, mentioned you'd just moved here, and offered to buy me pizza and ice cream within the first ninety seconds. I was flummoxed out of my mind. I probably would have followed you anywhere to see what the hell you would do next."

" _Ha_! After I convinced you not to escape into the sewers, you mean?"

"Excuse me, there was still a body was falling off a roof while I was levering that manhole cover off! And then suddenly pint-sized-pointy-doom was _lecturing me_! Like, seriously, that guy with the gun landed right next to you and kinda _splattered_ , and you didn't even flinch. Do you have any idea how untouchable that looked at the time? Now I know _why_ , your foresight told you it was going to happen a quarter minute before it did, and all you cared about was he wasn't going to fall on you, but I just remember being flabbergasted and sore—because I'd just slid off a roof—as I tried to be that mysterious dark ninja boy who wasn't allowed to just blurt out 'Holy shit, who are you and where did all those knives come from!?'"

Wildcard burst out laughing and she laughed hard, flopping back into him and hugging to him lovingly. He laughed, too, gathering her into a tight hug. They were such a _pair_. Yin and Yang, bright and dark, crazy and steady.

"Finish the story!" he insisted past snorts and giggles. "The batarang story!"

"Okay, okay! Um... Well from what I _remember_ , Harley Quinn—who now works for Batman as _Fruit Bat_ —tracked us down. She was ecstatic to see Dad alive; Dad was less than thrilled to see her. Everything was going swimmingly explosiontastic until I ran onto the fight scene with tears and boogers everywhere, to find him all dolled up in Joker facepaint and on the verge of killing her. Which was a saving grace! Because Batman had just entered the building and noticed dad forfeited the coup de grace and knocked Harley out instead. You have to imagine this huge, clench-jawed, manly, grunting, death-threat-filled stand-off between arch-nemeses who haven't seen each-other in half a dozen years. Suddenly: Toddler me asks Batman if I can have his autograph and informs him that I want to be a super hero, and that being a race-car-driving ballerina-princess hockey player will be my secret identity."

"Oh geeze. Even as a baby you were turning everything on its head?"

"Apparently! Anyway, I don't remember exactly why Batman backed off that night, but I figure it must have had something to do with how not-exactly-evil my dad was being, or how cute I was. The two of them stalemated and we fled the state and vanished again. The difference was: now Batman knows for sure Joker is alive, and is looking for us, so _that—_ via crazy person logic _—_ is why we ended up settling in Gotham. Cause who in their right mind would hide _there_?"

Sandro finished the braid and tossed it over her shoulder. "No wonder you left the city in such a big hurry after the mob car thing."

"Oh-ho, that story gets even _worse_. See, Dad knows who Batman actually _is_!"

Sandro paused in restoring her bandanna and leaned around her to stare at her face. "Yer shittin me. _You_ know Batman's secret identity?"

"The little girl I rescued from the mob car was _his_. Picture me using sleight of hand to keep this poor exhausted, red-faced kid entertained, while my dad steps out and gets on the world's most bizarre phone call. 'Hey, guess who accidentally has your daughter and won't be strapping dynamite to her!' We did the handover at a McDonalds. She and I pretended to be sharks in the play-place ball pit while we waited. I followed her out to hand her my Happy Meal toy," Wild lifted up her fingers, "and got _this effing close_ to _Batman_ with my dad watching us like a _cougar!_ "

"Oh _god_."

"But that's not even the worst part!" Wild threw up her arms in a tizzy. "She likes all the same kids cartoons I do! Don't you realize what that means!? I have to _sit_ on the knowledge that _Batman's eight-year-old daughter_ is a fan of _Mikey's comics_ and that her favorite turtle is _Donatello_ , because I have no way of explaining how I know!"

Sandro laughed so hard, because as far as Orange and Yang were concerned, that really _would_ be the worst part.

They talked about similar sorts of things then—the cities she'd lived, the people she'd met, and her father's eccentricities—until an old running gag between the two of them reared up again: "Phew," Wild commented as she sniffed at her practice Gi. "Does your mom happen to have a shower cap tucked away somewhere down here? I think I need a post-workout bubble bath but I don't want to ruin this nice braid."

* * *

"Kids?" Donatello called as he left the lab, only to find Sandro just down the hall, outside the bathroom door, leaning with his back against the wall. "Oh, what are you doing?"

"Wild needed a shower," the boy explained with a smirk, "just wanted to make sure no one accidentally walked in on her. She should be about done, I heard the water shut off." He straightened up. "You wanted to start talking strategy, right? I told Uncle Leo I'd tell my parents this weekend."

Donatello was amused (and relieved) to have found their teenage boy _guarding_ the privacy of a girl's shower. "You didn't, ehm, _peek_ did you?"

Sandro blinked at him twice, and his expression said Donatello had better be joking. "What?" he growled.

Donnie lifted his hands placatingly. "I figured you wouldn't. Just reminded me of a story."

"A _story?"_

"Mnhmm. Once upon a time," Donatello lifted a hand to mask his budding grin, "someone accidentally wandered under the drainage grates beneath the fitness center showers. And, ehm, that person was _Leo_. He was so mortified during practice later in the day that Raph and Mikey jumped on the opportunity to torment him. They got the story out of him in under an hour, whereupon he ran to Sensei and burst out crying hysterically as he begged for forgiveness."

Sandro stared up at him for a long and critical moment, but then slowly cracked the more and more he imagined poor, traumatized Leo. "H-how old were you?" he slowly wondered.

"Like _eleven_ , maybe _twelve_ ," Donatello cackled, because what had been earth-shattering at the time was now a harmless funny story in hindsight. "Um, Leo was quickly forgiven. The rest of us ended up in Hashi for a week for sneaking over to see what all the fuss was about, but we were all equally traumatized. Like: Raphael punched the lights out of anyone who mentioned it for the better part of a year." Donnie grinned at the floor. "You, um, have to remember we were living in the stone age down here; I'd gotten an old satellite television to work, so we had incredibly grainy cartoons, but certainly nothing _revealing_. And _we_ never wore clothes, so how could we know?"

Ahhh, the unfortunate misadventures of adolescent turtles in a sewer. "No, I'd never 'peek,'" Sandro grumbled, though must have begrudgingly gave him that this was an acceptable question, because he was grinning a little. "Fortunately this is the future, where people have the internet, Wikipedia, and incognito browser tabs—but I'd never, ever admit to using them to ask what naked humans look like, so don't ask."

Dontello decided that was fair enough, and patted the boy on the shoulder. "Right, so... strategy. I think Mikey ran ahead to get some cake, but afterwards we can get started discussing how to open the topic with your mother, and begin training your accomplice to keep all her lewd jokes to herself. Hopefully it won't be that hard."

They heard from within the bathroom: 'That's what she said!'

Donatello and Sandro took a moment to contemplate how she'd played that. Then Donnie mentioned to Sandro, "When your mom first moved in down here, Mikey was infamously on laundry duty. He went streaking across the house using a black dress and her bra like a cape and batman helmet, shouting 'Who sent you?' at everyone."

Wildcard blew up laughing on the other side of the bathroom door. Sandro raised a hand to congratulate Donatello on a well-played turnabout, and a resoundingly solid hi-three/five was had. "Let's go get that cake."

* * *

Minimeme made it into the kitchen dead-last, and hurried up to ascertain whether someone else had already eaten her cake. (Sandro had tried, but Mikey had held it up too high for him to reach, nyah nyah!) The outfit she'd changed into was new and unusual!

"Whoa, hey! Nice!" Mikey did a double-take as he handed her the cake. Was this one of her birthday presents? Either it was based off a full body catsuit, or else the seam between leggings and shirt was lost under interwoven layers of taut white fabric. There was a hood built straight out of the collar, but it also had a close-fitting turtleneck, and the torso section hugged her like a well-worn leather glove. From the unusual cut, to the way strips of the fabric wrapped about her ribs, stomach, and thighs, the whole getup subtly advertised that it was made for _action_. And, d'aww, she still had her protective shin and forearms guards on over top! _Such a tiny turtle!_

"You said you wanted to hear about my birthday presents!" she laughed, doing a splendid twirl to show it all off. "Well here most of them are!" There was a design emblazoned on her back, almost like the symbol you'd find on _happi_ jacket, and Mikey touched her shoulder so he could pause her and see it. It looked like a map compass pointing north—a cross on some circles with an arrow pointing up?—but instead of a 'N' for North, there was a 'W' on it! "Dad finally decided my old catsuit was too small," she explained. "So he made me something special!"

"It's _white._ " Sandro pointed at her with a fork. "Catsuits are supposed to be black so they're difficult to see in the dark."

"Ha! And isn't that a smidgen of reverse psychology!" she laughed as she danced from toe to toe and admired herself. "He gives me a spectacularly comfy mischief-making outfit, but I can't do anything in it that I'd be ashamed to see on the evening news! Do you suppose that makes it a super hero costume? Or just a bank heist deterrent?"

"Your father makes you Halloween costumes mid year and encourages delusions of super-heroics?" Donatello asked dryly. "Despite coming from an underground ninja clan, I'm not sure if I can approve of this parenting methodology..."

Mini laughed—like she agreed!—and then gave a good-natured wave of her hand that didn't make any sense to Mikey. "Eh, at least he's _trying_ , right?" she said in the voice of someone who felt compelled to defend some distantly estranged parent. "Its not like he can just give me purses and Barbies like a normal kid!" _Wait a minute, whoa_ , was she about to completely get away with not discussing the costume? "I think I'll wear it just to let him know I appreciate the attempt."

"Hnh. Just so long as you aren't going to do anything _foolish_..."

"Naww," she snickered. "I'll behave! To the best of my admittedly limited ability! Actually, no wait, you probably _should_ keep an eye on me: I feel like I've just jinxed myself and now am cosmically obligated to do something foolish..."

Donnie snorted, but was smiling a little, even if Mikey's disbelieving expression probably said more than a thousand costumes. Eep, play it cool! Wow, _wow_ , all that said with Donnie none the curiouser!

It _was_ a functional costume, wasn't it? Mikey pretended to be totally engrossed in fabric as he shifted his weight nearer to her. His finger brushed the overlapping fabric at the back of her ribs. He found sturdy armor under all the material, and sheathes for knives. _So sneaky and pointy!_ He deliberately did _not_ whistle despite how impressed he was. _So deceptively cute!_

"This is really good cake," Wildcard winked just for him, and he grinned. "You guys make it?"

"Yes, but cake's _always_ best a few days later," Donnie mentioned as he finished and stood. "I'm going to grab a few things out of the lab. I'll be right back; don't start Birthday Sharing without me, I have the best videos and you all know it." He pointed at them to let them know he was serious and then hurried back down the hall.

* * *

Mikey and Sandro waited till they heard the lab door shut, and then both rounded on Wildcard. "Holy Cha-lu-pa," Mikey whispered aghast, as Sandro wondered aloud, "Exactly how much ordinance have you smuggled into my house, Crazy Pants?"

"Ho! I have long knives, throwing stars, smoke bombs, slime grenades, gecko claws, knock-out gas, mustard gas, proximity mines, a deck of cards, switch blades, this thing here," she snickered, drawing out all sorts of shapes and putting them away just as invisibly. "I wanted to practice carrying all the weight! Flips are different when you're twenty pounds heavier! D'you think Leo will let me train in it?"

"You're supposed to be making it _easier_ for my family to like you!" Sandro protested. "Not scaring the shit out of them!"

"Are you kidding?" Mikey gestured to her with both hands. "She fits right in! Perfectly!"

"Yeah but no one cares!" Sandro threw up his hands. "Everyone wants to be super suspicious and judgmental, pretending we're normal and have high standards, when in reality we exist because a bunch of under-aged kids ran around beating up evil ninja clans with live weaponry and making friends with whatever rift-raft found the front door!" He gave a dramatic sigh, pushed his empty plate out of the way, and flopped his head into both arms atop the table. "We're telling mom over the weekend," he added.

"Well when I first met Mini," Mikey mentioned, "she ran down the rear bars of a crane no-handed in the middle of a hurricane. So I started off on the assumption your new friend could keep up with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle! And from the looks of things, Leo figured the same thing. Donnie'll see it when Donnie's _ready_ to see it, but, pfft, nobody has to drown April in details before Mini's had time to grow on her."

"We'll have to practice talking to her," Wildcard realized. "I need to be coached not to take control of the conversation and babble like a maniac over top of everyone else. Donnie can pretend to be her. Maybe Mikey can squeeze my arm whenever I'm talking too much."

"Yeah maybe you need to practice _not talking_ ," Sandro muttered. "Your whirlwind technique works best to break old walls, not as _introductory material."_

"I can sit still and be quiet." Mikey and Sandro looked doubtfully at her, but she reminded them: "I did use to go to public school, after all. But she'll ask me questions about myself, I'm sure. Ooh! By the way." She produced a brightly-wrapped birthday present from nowhere. "This is for _you_! I told Dad that if he wanted to make you something, it had to be a completely wholesome gift, so don't expect anything too exciting."

Sandro and Mikey both perked up, and then the former hesitantly took the box and tore the paper off. He wadded it and tossed it to Mikey, who swiftly disposed of the evidence and turned about just in time to witness the reveal of a tin of home-made pecan, caramel, and chocolate cookies. Sandro hastily covered it. "This was extremely exciting," he disagreed. Mikey reached out to demand cookies, and Sandro caved and passed him and Wild one.

"Hey, he did a really good job at the 'wholesome' part while also making it a joke. I think these are technically called _turtle cookies_ ," Wild was impressed. "So! My story is I'm Sandro's school, play, and Ninjitsu buddy?"

"Right, and ixnay on hallmarks of a teenage vigilante," Sandro told her as he gobbled up a second cookie (and had to give Mikey and Wild a second cookie to compensate). "Doesn't matter if you aren't actually _doing_ anything; don't be _showing off_. No _knives_ within a month of meeting mom. And definitely no _bombs._ "

"Roger! I should take notes, hmm."

"No knives and no bombs," Donatello repeated as he entered the room with a portable tablet and a stack of books. He set the latter on the table and pushed them to Wildcard. "It's sad that we should have to start so low, but probably best that we are thorough in our prohibitions, as we've clearly taken in a maniac. Here, Ana, take a look at these."

"School books?" Mini realized as she took them. "Oh! 'Beginning Japanese'?"

"Yes. If you would like, I would be happy to formally instruct you, and we can arrange some class time for the two of you instead of pushing Sandro's coursework off til after your visits. It's up to you; take a few days to think about it."

Mini looked up at him. "Can you teach math?" she wondered, and Mikey immediately liked that idea. Helping to home school her? Solid! The more time she was around their family, the less everyone would waste time worrying who/what her dad was, or why he could/would gift her an armored ninja costume.

Donatello blinked. "I... what is the context of the question?"

"I'm almost done with Stewart's Calculus," Mini explained. "I don't know where to go after that, and my father never went to university so he can only help me so much. I could watch free MIT lecture podcasts online, if I just new what to start on next, but I'm kinda on my own."

Purple Turtle stared at her like he was rapidly closing ten thousand mental browser tabs to clear space. "Ha!" Mikey actually laughed. _Bingo, Donnie! And you were so slow, Leo beat you to her! How slow? Too slow!_

Though Donnie sort of already _had_ a Little Ninja: Sandro. It was _Leo and Mikey_ who had been left, for one reason or another, a little further back on the sidelines.

Hmm.

Well that didn't mean Donnie couldn't warm up to her, tehe. "Linear Algebra," Purple Turtle finally said. "After Calculus III, the next most common topic would be Linear Algebra. Is-" he looked to Sandro, who offered him a cookie since he was far too distracted to question said cookie's origins "-is she being serious?"

"She's got the book dog-eared to about three quarters of the way through," Sandro supplied hesitantly, because he only knew so much about the topic and couldn't attest to her skill level. "And she works in it a lot when she gets exhausted by remedial work. You know, like... a normal person would work on a book of Sudoku puzzles? I've seen her do it. I _tease_ her about it."

"My copy the book is like twenty years old and I had to dig it out of the dump cause I left all my old books behind in Gotham, but assuming three-dimensional math hasn't changed much in that time period, I think I'm good?" Wildcard hazarded.

"Hmm. Well." Purple Turtle leaned back. "Speaking of things that might impress someone's parents," Donatello remarked off-hand and then waved to dismiss the issue. "We'll talk about this afterwards. For _now_... I present to you all: the best of our family home videos from the weekend." He proudly pushed the tablet he'd carried in over to them. "And I'll warn you now, we have some unexpected tiny arrivals in there... _four_ of them. With _teeth_."

"Oh _my_."

* * *

Wildcard was still giggling to herself about Raphael's need to assert his masculinity by disapproving of the alligator girls' _names_ while simultaneously giving them bright pastel kerchiefs to wrap about their necks.

"This isn't going to work," Sandro reflected of the role-playing exercise they had scheduled with Donnie. "She's not going to talk to you seriously as if you were my mom and they were actually meeting for the first time, she's too _giddy_."

"M-maybe that's for the best!" Wildcard cackled. "I can get it all out of my system." Sandro slumped into a face-palm.

Donatello wasn't certain whether to indulge her or not, but eventually leaned over and asked, "So introduce yourself, Miss...?"

"Hi I'm Wildcard!" she squealed. "And there's a non-negligible statistical possibility I might be your future daughter in law!"

Donatello blinked. Sandro slowly lifted his head and looked over at her. A moment passed in silence.

* * *

" _ **YOU ARE SO DEAD**_!" boomed thunderously to shake the entire household. Wildcard sped away at break-neck speed and Sandro followed after her with a chair held high and a clear intent to murder.

So much _Spirit of Raphael_ was being channeled in the moment that Donatello actually got up and hurried after them to make sure Wildcard would be alright. Unlike Mikey, who had a shell, strength, and a high regenerative factor, this girl was only human. For a moment it looked like Sandro had cornered her in the dojo, but then she hit the wall at a sprint, ran herself up a good solid six feet, and catapulted back through the air above him, kicked off the chair and his shell, and send herself rolling safely to the ground.

"Too slow, bro!" she called _just like Mikey_ as Sandro stumbled into the wall, threw the chair after her, missed, roared, and chased after her again.

Donatello blinked quietly at where that wall-run stunt had just gone off without a hitch, noting how difficult it had been and that Sandro could not have pulled off anything similar. _Hmm._ He glanced behind himself at where there children were sliding into, bumping, and possibly breaking things across the house, and concluded Leo's decision to train her hadn't been as arbitrary or conciliatory as it had looked.

Food for thought. Donatello shrugged to himself and went to go make two different kinds of healing ointment, because he had a feeling someone would need it.

* * *

When Wildcard got home in the early morning hours, she was happy. Michelangelo had walked her most of the way home and touched the top of her head fondly, and she felt this sorta oozy good feeling people only got when being doted on by someone they trusted. Sandro _hadn't_ managed to kill her, and Donatello's healing ointment had been unnecessary (although he had destroyed a perfectly good throw pillow)!

Eventually she'd calmed down and stopped shouting things from the peanut gallery while Sandro was practicing things he'd say to his mom with Donatello. She'd watched the two of them work through all sorts of questions April might ask, or avenues the conversation might turn down. Some times, Sandro visibly panicked over things that seemed kinda simple, and then they'd have to back track and figure out why, and watching him struggled had brought out Wildcard's better parts and sent her over to hold his hand and calm him down.

Wildcard slipped into her house and took off her hoodie and baggy pants, and then got out of her costume. She dressed into bedtime clothes, but then found her way down to her dad's room and peered within. He'd turned in early for the 'night.' She watched him for a moment, and then tottered over and climbed into the bed and snuggled with him.

"Did someone die?" Joker asked her sleepily.

"Just really happy," she yawned.

"I'm buying that family a military grade turtle-shaped submarine," Joker decided. "As an expression of my eternal gratitude."

" _Dad_."


	55. Uh Oh

Okay, the time for jokes was over.

The parents would be home on Friday night, which meant that Sandro, Wildcard, and Donnie only had Wednesday and Thursday evening left to prepare for this massive confrontation that had been hanging over all their heads for nearly a month (or much longer, if one considered how Sandro had probably been dreading the possibility of it since the very day he'd first met her)—and Wednesday had already started! Gosh, it was starting to hit her just how _little_ she could afford to mess this up for them; Plus Sandro had a lot of extra psychological baggage gunking up the passageways of his brain—he needed her to _be there_ on the same page as him!

So when Sandro slipped during Ninjitsu practice and started cursing under his breadth, Wildcard didn't tease him. She flit out from under Leo's wing before Leo could even start admonishing that curse-word usage, and she leaned over and offered Sandro a hand up. The expression her brother turned up towards her might as well have said, "Oh hello Nice Version of Wildcard, I was wondering if you'd show up," but the implied sarcasm melted away and he took her hand. She pulled him to his feet.

"Thanks." He jostled her affectionately with his elbow. "Don't wear the full costume when you meet them, please."

"Wouldn't dream of it!" she agreed; Wildcard was still relieved Leo was letting her train in it at all. T'wasn't remotely Japanese, but it did a nice job keeping her the right temperature, and it mimicked the real conditions she might face in combat one day!

"Kinpōge-kun," her sensei called, but let Sandro off the hook for all those F-words he'd been tossing around a second ago.

* * *

Wildcard (and her father; she'd asked permission just that morning) agreed to have Donatello teach her Japanese, and hopefully also advanced mathematics once the time came. Donnie supplied her with the basic information her dad would require to enroll her in a homeschooling course on the topic and submit tests.

Honestly, who would _pass up_ the opportunity to be tutored by Mamatello, especially knowing both how ingenious he was AND (almost more important) how well he'd succeeded at homeschooling Sandro? (Sometimes smart people had a difficult time breaking down concepts for students; Donnie must have had a lot of practice explaining things to Mikey his whole life. Tehe!)

Anyway! The three of them had much more urgent things than _schoolwork_ to pin down right now, so academics got shuffled to the back burner while team Conversational Planning agreed to split up their time between physical fitness activities (to release stress) and practicing on that upcoming conversation. Wildcard kept her jokes to herself and filed them away in an elaborate mental planner labeled 'for later use.' She answered Donatello's conversational prompts to the best of her ability, and then asked questions that sometimes made him stare at her in disbelief that anyone could be so clueless. Sandro always grinned. Sandro totally _knew_ her.

Despite the fact that Wild had lived and operated above ground among 'normal people' most of her life, it was in everybody's best interest that she ask dumb questions. Donatello's answers would serve as a clear-cut anchor for her to fall back on if she got nervous.

Wednesday evening progressed past lunch time, and Michelangelo put on some music and got them to shake off stress with some free-form dance! Truth be told, Wildcard thought she was going to be able to _totally master_ the whole break-dancing thing. Whoop-whoop! But as for her singing? Well...

"You should give up," Sandro advised her. "You sound like a crow is being murdered right outside my eardrum."

Wildcard punched him for that and delighted in his loud 'Ow!' but, eh, it was totally true, so they both broke out laughing and she let him off the hook. She forgot to ask him if he even had eardrums. How did turtles hear, exactly?

* * *

Something interesting happened on Thursday. Michelangelo went out on patrol, and _Leonardo_ stayed home. In retrospect, Leo had gone and worked out some schedule changes with Donatello after that big fight they'd had, so this sort of made sense! Suddenly: Leo had days off! But poor Blue Turtle didn't look like he had any idea whatsoever what to do with himself, and Donatello wasn't available because he busy training them.

Oh dear. Wild grinned at the irony. Until Donatello had free time to spend with him, it seemed these first few days of 'time off' should result in Leo doing exactly what nobody else really wanted him doing: Sequestering himself in the dojo and meditating the entire time.

But Leo surprised her. He came out of the dojo to listen to them work, and eventually he took a seat at the other end of the kitchen table. Wild leaned back to peer around Sandro's shell, and found her Sensei to be peening his katana with a sharpening steel. _Shink. Shink. Sssshhink,_ went the sharpening steel.

Donatello leaned forward and snapped his fingers in front of her face. Wild jumped (slightly ahead of the actual snap, too, which was dumb of her, but no one seemed to notice). Purple Turtle laughed at how severely she'd been startled. "She really does zone out staring at people," he remarked to Sandro, "it's not my imagination."

"Well you're all very attractive!" Wild protested, but then that was probably exactly the sort of thing she was practicing _not_ to blurt out in a panic to April O'Neil. She slapped a hand over her face. "Oops."

"S'fine, I'll just elbow her," Sandro reflected dryly. "I seriously don't think she can help it. You should see how fixated she gets on shell patterns, she might as well be trying to solve a maze."

"I'm _weeeirrddd_ ," she moaned dramatically.

"Oh you are _definitely_ weird, Crazy Pants," Sandro agreed with an affectionately patronizing tousle of her hair, and she scowled and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Perhaps I have a good sample question which a mother might ask," Leo broached, and both kids turned to look at him. "'Do either of you have any romantic feelings?'"

Sandro visibly gagged like he might as well have just thrown up in his mouth a little (Bwahaha!) but Wildcard demanded clarification: "Well are we counting my crush on Donnie?" Donatello looked down at her. She looked up at him, and affected a very slick smoothing of her hair. "What's cookin' good lookin'?"

Donatello slowly sank into the world's most understandable facepalm. Wildcard did an 'aw shucks' gesture with a closed fist. "I guess I need Mikey to teach me more moves," she lamented with an innocent smile Sandro's way.

"If I knock her lights out," Sandro queried as he stared lightning bolts through her, "Will the black eye heal in time?"'

"Well I'll tell you what: If anyone here's got a better idea what to do when someone's mom is asking if you've got the hots for her son," Wildcard snickered, "I'm all ears! Until then, my plan's to get Sandro to punch me in front of his parents; that should help clarify our relationship, right?"

Donatello's tremendously heavy sigh said enough to fill volumes, but the quiet way Sensei ducked his head and looked back down at his swords suggested he'd hidden an itty bitty little _smile_ , so Wild felt mighty proud of herself for keeping up group morale. Even if she'd resorted to laughs.

* * *

Leo was meditating, so Wildcard took it upon herself to interrupt him. She hurried straight up to his shell, hauled herself up onto his shoulder, and waited to see if he'd throw her. He didn't. Perfect! Let it never be said Wildcard had failed to make a nuisance of herself to straight-laced people. She flopped there upon his shoulder and heaved a tremendous sigh.

"Are you nervous, then, Kinpōge-kun?" Blue Turtle asked after a long silence had past.

"Yup," she mumbled. "Sandro and Donnie are making lunch, by the way. They told me to tell you it would be ready in about ten minutes."

"Thank you. Would you please remove yourself from my person now?"

"Nope," she mumbled with a content shake of her head. "Not even for 'please.'"

He tried to simply shrug her off, but she held onto his neck. Of course it wouldn't be hard to remove her, but she had a feeling he'd simply give up and tolerate her negligible weight. Which it seemed he did. Until eventually he mentioned, "I am not Michelangelo," which made it clear he was not meditating anymore.

"Michelangelo's easy to love on," she yawned, in desperate need of lunch. "You're difficult."

"That is completely unnecessary and most likely-"

"Excuse me, but I find it very necessary to do unnecessary things. If I don't do them, they go undone. Besides, it's the first day you've been here since I've met you. When else am I supposed to annoy you? There are _consequences_ if I do it during practice, ick, those are the worst."

Leonardo lifted a hand, grabbed her by the scruff of her outfit, swung her off his shell, and plopped her on the ground in front of him. His eyes opened. "Clearly someone requires instruction in _śamatha_ to calm her thoughts."

Did that mean meditation? Wildcard could not think of anything _less relaxing_ than being alone in her own head with lots of silence and thoughts, and she gave a tremendous roll of her eyes. "I'd probably find it more 'calming' to drink twenty shots of red-bull and then get in a high speed Formula One racing accid-"

" _Seiza_."

Doh, he was serious. Oh well. At least she had his attention.

* * *

"Can someone fill me in on something?" Wildcard asked of the turtle family as they ate their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like proper ninjas. To her immense delight, they cut the crust off for her. Icky, icky crust had no place on a super yummy smooth sandwich. Mikey must have agreed, or Donnie wouldn't have intuitively served it to her this way! Wait a minute, was Leo eating natural peanut butter, with the oil and stuff that you had to stir? Ewwww, he _was_. Gross, that stuff was _awful_.

"Ask away," Donnie prompted.

"Oh, right! Why don't April and Raphael live here at home for most of the week?" She nommed her sandwich.

"Safety," Sandro answered. "Mom's the only member of our family who's visible in daylight. She's easy to find if our enemies want to try and take a stab at us. There's only so many routes from Manhattan Island to Jersey City and all of them involve crossing the Hudson, and they're all potentially death traps if we don't keep them under surveillance. So the commute to and from the island is kinda nerve wracking, and everyone's deployed on different jobs to make sure she isn't attacked."

"Oh I see."

"Originally, they did try going back and forward every day," Donatello supplied. "But that was rough. Much too rough on us, and much to rough on working parents. She's already inclined to pull all-nighters researching a difficult story. For the sake of our sanity—and the safety of the Holland Tunnel—we scaled back to just once a week. It was the best compromise we could find."

"So April's over there because she works there," Wildcard mused, "But why's Raphael?"

"He'd not leave her," Leo answered. "For a time we switched off with him, sharing the duty of protecting her, but there were a few close calls. One could say Raphael trusts no one else with her, but that would not be wholly accurate. _More truthful_ would be to say that managing her safety in person prevents him from lashing out at anyone else when things heat up."

"Well, I _guess_ that makes sense," she scratched at the back of her neck, "but it sounds like this is an arrangement that's easy to justify while your child is still in diapers, and doesn't really work years later when he's left wondering why you've basically abandoned him on the other side of a river."

"Wild," Sandro scolded.

"I guess I have no frame of reference," she admitted, looking down at her knees. "But it feels like the underlying assumptions of the entire thing should be put into question." That was fair enough, right?

"Well, not this weekend they shouldn't be," Donatello patted her head. "Let's take everything one rabbit hole at a time."

That made sense. She sidled closer in her chair to Sandro, to provide some physical contact, and he smiled to let her know he was made of sturdier stuff than she feared.

* * *

It was Friday evening, a few hours past sunset. Mikey had gone out to ascertain Wildcard's whereabouts and make sure she got safely into the sewers. The plan was for Sandro to speak with his mother soon.

The 'day' had started off normally for the turtles, who supervised April and Raphael's ritualized commute back to Jersey City. They'd intended to give the parents time to settle in, and Donatello would make sure April relaxed from work and was properly caffeinated while Sandro did Ninjitsu training with Raphael.

When the appointed hour came, Leonardo would challenge Raphael to a friendly spar, and Sandro and Donatello would talk to April in the lab, which was soundproofed up to a very large number of decibels. This way, if their conversation turned just a little heated, they could be absolutely sure Raphael wouldn't accidentally snowball it into anything bigger.

Sandro would simply explain to his mother that he'd met a friend topside, and request permission to introduce her to both of them. That was all! Easy. Assuming April didn't immediately balk or ask any particularly damning questions, it would be a quick conversation to pique his parents' curiousity, and April would be the one to tell Raphael of the development.

Wildcard would wait. If Donatello judged the timing right, they'd send Mikey out to fetch her and introduce her then and there that very night. If, however, the parents looked particularly drained or skeptical, Donatello would recommend they introduced her first thing the next day, and Wildcard would receive a text from one of the turtles that just said 'delay.'

So now all Wildcard had to do was wait. There were many things she could do to entertain herself while waiting for word from her turtles; she had plenty of options. Of course, anyone could deduce that the one thing Wildcard absolutely _did not do_ was try to _meditate_. Pfft! Nope. _Nadda_.

She entertained herself with iPhone games, and tried to determine whether she could play Pokemon Go from underground (she could, remarkably). She sat on a rung of the manhole ladder and practiced with her deck of cards, absently started juggling knives, and then belatedly recalled that she really shouldn't be _armed_ when she met Sandro's parents. Err, but it wasn't like she was going to walk through the slums without weapons. Maybe she should just stuff everything dangerous into a little cubby hole down in here in the sewers, and pick it all up again as she left?

* * *

The designated hour came.

And the designated hour went.

Mikey did not come, and neither did any message show up on her phone. _Something has happened_ , and Wildcard was hit by a deep certainty that it mustn't have been good.

But she didn't have anywhere else to be that night, and she wanted to know whether Sandro was okay, so she decided that she would wait however many hours it took in order to get an update. She didn't dare text her poor brother (heaven forbid anyone see him receive a text message before he'd told them about her; that could totally throw off his game ), and she certainly didn't dare calling any of his uncles, even just to remind them of her existence, because she figured the only way Mikey would have 'forgotten' about her was if he was busy with something alarming, and she didn't want to implicate anyone at what could well be the worst possible time!

Armed with so little knowledge of what was happening, she felt helpless. Her mind started to wander without her consent, brainstorming all sorts of crazy 'solutions.' It would have been hilariously out-of-the-box for her to call April right now and ask, "So, hey, how's your son doing? Is he dead?" Wildcard really could do that; she could deduce the woman's number just by looking at the rest of her family's numbers.

Oh-ho! No! No! Bad Wildcard! Put the phone down!

Okay, maybe meditation wasn't such a bad idea. It could distract her! Sure it didn't sound great to be left alone with her thoughts in her own head, but right now she was _already_ left alone with her thoughts in her own head, and, uh, they were crazy thoughts! Leo had _talked_ her through her first attempts at meditation, and honestly it hadn't been so bad, and maybe she could just try to recall his voice. He and Sandro both had very nice voices.

 _'The goal is not to empty your mind,'_ he had explained. _'Nor even to calm it just yet. Glimpse your thoughts as if just passing them, and do not let them carry you off. Visualize all of them, traveling around you, in and out, quick as the wind. Listen to your heartbeat—a sound that can be unsettling—to your breath, which will make you conscious of it—to the sounds of the water around us, which will make you annoyed of the dripping sound to our left. Do not linger too long on any one thing, but contemplate all of them. Back up from yourself to understand the whole of your energy and your context.'_

 _'Is my energy supposed to be tingling like electricity and making me want to jump out of my skin?'_

 _'Yours? Yes, I'd imagine so.'_ And that had been funny. _'But to calm your mind, you must confront the natural state of it: a state which is not calm.'_

It wasn't bad, doing this. It wasn't great, either, but it wasn't bad. She was conscious of the adrenaline in her veins, and that her heart was pounding, and that it was all uncomfortable. But being intentionally self-aware and thinking of her sensei's lecture did give her something to do.

Of course she eventually ran out of lecture... And then after that she thought maybe she should get on the phone with her dad to calm her down.

* * *

"Kinpōge?"

Holy CRAP did Leo have magical stealth abilities. Wildcard nearly gave up the ghost just from the premonition that he was coming, and she definitely reacted to his arrival before he'd even spoken. Wildcard had a bad feeling she might not be able to hide her gift from Leo, not when he noticed so many other ridiculously hard-to-notice things. "S-sensei?" she blurted as she clambered to her feet, because 'sensei' was just how she was used to addressing him.

"The introduction will not be today," Leo said. "I will accompany you home."

"Did something happen with the commute?" she blurt, because hours of waiting alone underground for word of her friend and surrogate family had left her on the fritz.

"No, everyone made it home safely," he gestured for her to follow. "There is no danger. I might better have said 'I will _walk_ you home.'"

"But then where's Mikey?" she pressed, following along after him. "Donnie was supposed to text me if it wasn't today!"

"It will not be tomorrow, either. Michelangelo's gentle touch is presently needed at home, and Donatello is hovering like an incensed wasp. It was best I come and get you myself, as my presence was least needed and most likely to spark ill result."

A fight must have broken out, and the truth of it was written in Leonardo's aloof body posture and deep frown. The next qeustion was _whom_ had fought with _whom_? Had it been verbal or physical? Had Leo and Raphael fought? Donnie and April? "Is Sandro okay?" she demanded, because that was the most important part.

"Do not worry," he brushed aside with a hand.

"I'm already worried! Don't you realize I've been waiting for hours, knowing something was wrong!?"

"Yes, that is why I came in person instead of messaging you."

"Then tell me what happened!"

"It is best I do not."

Wildcard shoved him, even as she didn't move him at all. "Let me try again, in case you didn't hear me the first time: Is. Sandro. Okay."

"The plan is canceled for the weekend," Leonardo not-answered, still walking, still ignoring her frustration. "We will message you on Monday to confirm whether you should arrive at the regular—"

"You don't get to _do_ that!" she hissed, planting herself right where she was and glaring after him. "You don't get to ignore me and act like I didn't speak. I'm not one of your brothers, I won't roll my eyes and mutter a resigned, 'That's Leo,' and settle for that. Whatever insular, repressed, emotionally stunted _thing_ you've become over the past few decades might look _justifiable_ to them because they've been through the monotonous boredom of watching it worsen year by year, but here on the outside you're just a damaged, arrogant, inconsiderate _prick_ who can't answer simple questions!"

He paused and turned to looked at her like so much falling snow: gentle, cold, impassive, unreachable, mute.

The future fused into a single image, and long before she had any sense of herself, Wildcard had pulled out a knife, and thrown it at him. She knew her throw was solid, and knew it was strong, and knew it was sudden, because she had been powerful enough to kill highly trained men and dislodge weapons from their hands without even thinking about it.

But this was Leo. He literally raised a hand and caught the knife midair, inches in front of his face, one-handed, without twitching. She might as well have gently tossed him a paper airplane his way, had he not been required to move so suddenly.

So Wildcard grabbed another knife, and another, and then the world was a rush of blue and gray. CRASH. Stars swam. Everything smelled terrible. She blinked slowly through grime. Her left cheek felt hot, which she assumed meant it had been scraped. She was face-down beside the sewer with an arm wrenched at a painful angle behind her back, and a very large, very fast, and very deadly turtle crouched over her.

The reality of her utter inability to move—her inability to change the future in any way from this point forward—was so perversely _quiet_. It echoed around and inside her and made her insane.

"Drop, Kinpōge."

Kinpōge. _Kinpōge_ hadn't even been aware she'd still been holding a knife, namely because there'd been nothing she could have done with it. She dropped it from her fingertips, just as she'd been told, and it pattered to the ground with a few tinkling clatters. Leo let go of her almost immediately, but Wildcard stayed where she'd been planted, curled up, and sank her face into her arms.

She felt like a grenade that couldn't explode. She wanted to burst into glitter and become little more than debris scattered everywhere. She felt like a crazy person, and that was probably because she _was_ a crazy person. She was 75% sure just thrown knives she couldn't ever unthrow.

Then massive, three-fingered hands interrupted her malaise, scooping under her back, shoulders, and arms to pull her upright. Leo sat her there before himself, but she didn't want to-

"Look at me," her sensei commanded very seriously, and then pulled her face up and cradled it. His thumbs cleared debris from her scraped and pounding cheek. She sank from his scrutiny, feeling pitiful, breathing fast. He shook his head, and in a flustered and raised tone of voice accused: "There was nothing in you—nothing—which believed that would work. There was nothing in you which _wanted_ it to work." His glare met her eyes and he gave her a little shake. "Yet you attacked someone _. Why_?"

She took in a shaky breath. "It made you react," she realized sadly. "It was the only thing I could do to get you to react."

"And you think having your face smashed into the world's least sanitary concrete is somehow an improvement on receiving no reaction!?" he demanded. "That submitting to a violent, spur-of-the-moment impulse is somehow validated by having _successfully provoked_ me?!"

She nodded feebly, not that it made any sense.

Her sensei seemed to stare at her a long moment, or to search her face. Then his eyelids fluttered rapidly and he took a deep breath and lifted his head. A moment later, he knelt down in front of her upon the filthy ground, and he pulled her to her knees as well.

"Sandro is not entirely 'okay,'" Leonardo told her as he leaned back and settled his hands upon his lap. "Neither is he in any danger. I would surmise he is extremely angry, among a long listing of other and more complex emotions. Physically, he will recover, but if I could bring you to him now to balm his wounded spirit, I would.'

Wildcard peered wide-eyed up at him, trying to understand where this had all come from, or why it had been so hard to say. Maybe there was only one possible question to ask him. "Where were _you_ when this shit hit the fan?"

Leo flinched almost imperceptibly, but she was right there watching his face, so she caught it. "Absent," he admitted, turning his gaze to the side. "I thought I saw some suspicious activity near the river as the commute reached its conclusion, so I remained outside for a single hour to investigate..."


	56. Red

"Hey mom!" Sandro greeted her at the door with a smile and a hug. _Today! It's going to be today!_ "How was work?"

" _Passable_ ," she chuckled as she hugged him back, and he was pleased to see no dark circles under her eyes. "Mnn! Boy, this is different."

"What is?"

"Well... Seeing you smile again," she confessed almost shyly, as if worrying about banishing the facial expression in question. "I've heard you haven't tried to give your uncles the slip _once._ Didn't expect you to take being grounded with so much grace, honestly."

"Oh." Sandro had been so immensely _satisfied_ by having Wildcard around the Turtle Den that he'd completely forgotten about the restless, unapproachable funk he'd been going through before he'd met her. Even then, prior to getting busted for going topside, he'd spent massive chunks of every day outside the lair and basically avoided everybody his family. "It's not terrible." He mimicked her 'almost shy' body language, happy to hear she'd paid any attention to his moods at all.

"Very well: don't let me in on the secret!" she teased with an affectionate pat on his shell as she went to greet Mikey and Donatello.

Sandro smirked after her. _Don't worry._ Then a thundercloud brushed past him, and his smile sobered as he glanced over to gauge his father's mood from his body language. Raphael noticed him and gave a little taunting sneer and leaned near.

"S'that all it takes?" his father whispered. "A little slap on the wrist to get ya ta kiss everyone's ass?"

Sandro's own mood darkened almost to match, and he wrinkled his nose and looked down to his feet in a refusal to argue. Raphael actually barked a laugh, but at least left him alone. Sandro thought about the birthday party, just a week (and another world entirely) away. He thought about the lake, kayaking, the bike, and all the fond and proud little glances his father had sent his way. _Apparently it was too much to hope any of that would stick._ He thought about Leo's 'advice' that Raphael might understand him. _Yeah. Sure._

"C'mon, kid!" Raphael called. "Week behind in ya trainin. Got catchup work ta do."

Sandro looked darkly after his father's shell. He took a deep breath and let out his beak, and then turned to follow after him. _Two hours, and then I get to talk to mom. Alone._ He might need an hour break in the middle to take a shower and cool off so that he wasn't riled up for the big reveal, but fortunately he had Donatello to fall back on.

"Hey! Lil Bro!" Mikey called out to him, and Sandro nearly tripped on his thoughts as he turned about and blinked. Mikey beamed at him. "Yo, I'll make sandwiches for after! Raph looks a lil hangry too, right?"

 _Ha! 'Hangry.'_ Relief broke through Sandro's cloud. "Sounds great," he appreciated being noticed. "Thanks uncle Mike."

* * *

"Ya really ain't snuck out once?" was the first thing Raphael asked as he sat to don practice gear. "Not even just the sewers for some air?"

"Yeah, I'm pretending I'm Leo and don't have material needs," Sandro muttered noncommittally as he went to get his own things. "What's it to you? Mom's happy, right?"

" _Hnhh_." Raphael probably didn't like his phrasing or tone, but what made Mom happy couldn't really be argued with, now could it? "I woulda ditched Donnie in a heartbeat and let dat sucker worry."

"So, if I vanished under _explicit instructions_ to stay in the house, you wouldn't kick my ass?" Sandro glanced at him.

Raphael's grin was anything but friendly; if anything, he looked to be getting less plesant and more riled. Crap. Had Sandro botched a reply? "What's de matter, 'fraid I'll break one of ya nails, ya lil runt?"

Sandro wished he could pause the universe, walk away, take a cold shower, reflect on the situation, conduct some research, and then come back to Raphael with fresh insight on whatever the hell was rubbing Red Turtle the wrong way. Honestly, they might have all teased Wildcard but she had a _gift_ for playign conversations just right.

 _Okay. Look. By the Spirit of your Grandfather, don't get stuck. Don't close down. You practiced holding up against Mom, but you can do this too. Ask a question, and don't be insulting. Go:_

"No, I'm wondering why you sound so pissed with me for doing what you and mom _told_ me to do." Thank _Splinter_ , that might be a little surly but it was well within reasonable parameters. Raphael huffed and gave a toss of his head and a roll of his shoulders, but that was it. Sandro glanced at him a little resentfully, but still wanted to figure out what was bothering him. Maybe... _just maybe..._

...Raphael had always been the one in trouble, so maybe he sorta _expected_ to see the same behavior in Sandro? _Trust me, it's in here. It'd be nice if you'd stop trying to goad it out._ He stood and got his kama, and started warm ups.

"Ready to be educated," Sandro submitted.

"Ha. Ya really _are_ Donnie's kid," Red Turtle teased, which Sandro had never found particularly insulting. Certainly it didn't feel 'inappropriate,' or whatever Donnie and April and everybody else got all riled up about. It was just a joke, and not even a particularly mean one. Donnie had basically _raised_ Sandro, after all. He'd been a stand-in—uh, well, not ' _father_ ,' exactly—sorta a stand-in _mother? Heh._ It was easier to think that way with Leo appending a -kun suffix to a cute girl's name, and Mikey randomly offering to be people's mom.

"Speakin of kids!" Raphael segued as he stood and cracked his fingers. "What the _fuck_ was with that whole unicorn thing? I knew _Mikey_ was a goddamn Fruit, I figured you'd at least inherited a few drops of testosterone."

Good humor vanished. _Don't say shit about my uncle Mike._ Sandro clenched his teeth. _Two hours._ _Not that mom's easy to talk to, but if I can handle this then I can handle her._

* * *

Leonardo returned the sewers just as soon as he was satisfied the commotion he'd witnessed hadn't been owed to gang activity. It had been best to investigate. The last thing they needed was a sabotaged security camera while Donatello's attention was elsewhere. By now, Sandro's Ninjitsu lessons would be almost over, and Kinpōge would be making her way underground and heading upwards from the south. Everything—

—something was wrong. The sensation of trouble _overlooked_ was so keen that he nearly turned about and headed back topside, but no, no, whatever this premonition was, it did not have to do with the Foot. Anxious to see his family and (hopefully) shake this dread, Leonardo increased his pace.

Nothing was amiss as he reached the door. He opened it to find everything warm and cozy within, with Michelangelo telling April such excellent jokes that she was nearly red-faced with laughter. Donatello was heating up a fresh pot of coffee just to make sure they didn't run out. Everyone was doing their part to make sure this day would go off without a hitch.

Leo frowned. He glanced from sibling to sibling and then took off his outdoor tabi and rinsed them. A thought occurred to him: a small task that Leohad been performing every weekend, not because it was necessary but because it was unobtrusive and allowed him to be supportive of his nephew.

"Where is Sandro?" he asked suddenly.

"In the dojo with Raphael," Donatello answered, and that was expected, because that's where Sandro and Raphael _usually_ were at the beginning of every weekend.

"Sandro is alone with Raphael in the dojo, without a spotter?" Leo asked, and no sooner had the words left his tongue than he felt how strange they were. To suggest father and son needed some form of supervision would have made April frown at him had she and Michelangelo not been busy.

Donatello raised a brow at him. Donatello paused what he was doing. Donatello frowned.

For Leonardo had said 'spotter,' but he'd meant 'referee.'

Donatello twisted to look towards the hallway, and by the ghost of fear which settled upon his countenance, he'd just felt that same ominous dread that had been creeping up on Leo the entire journey home.

* * *

Of all the stupid things Sandro could be doing right now, trying to talk to Raphael about how _frustrated_ it made him whenever his mom talked over his head was _undoutedly the stupidest._ Trying-to-avoid-a-fight time was not time for heart-to-heart conversations! But FUCK, every time Sandro told that to himself, his father whipped out another disparaging comment that made Sandro _angry_ , and he flung out some ill-considered retort.

GAH, how had this conversation even STARTED?!

"I don't even know how to talk to her anymore," a bad-tempered Sandro growled in an extremely cliche sort of teenager way that made Sandro himself cringe.

" _Politely_ would be a nice change."

FOR SHELL'S SAKE, DAD. I AM TRYING TO TALK TO YOU. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

"I'm as polite as I know how, _fuck_ off!" Sandro shouted back, even though the next blow of a Sai fell much harder as wordless punishment for cursing. "She just doesn't listen to me. She doesn't care about anything I think! If she says 'jump' all she wants to hear is 'how high?'"

"Hey, _damn_ _straight_ that's the sorta respect she deserves from ya, and she ain't ever said anythin like that to ya anyways. Ya ain't exactly bein easy ta mother, kid, ignorin and growlin at everybody over nothin—least ways till recently. Notice nobody road ya tail over goin topside even though ya scared the shit outta her and everybody else? Be grateful ya even have such an understandin ma."

"Well lately I've been thinking I'd be hard-pressed to imagine a _less motherly_ mother."

Raphael threw him back with the next hit, and hard. SAndro had to roll, and then scramble back to his feet. "Show some fuckin' respect, ya little shit," his father pointed a Sai at him. "She nearly died bringin' ya inta this world, and has slaved every day of ya goddamn life ta make sure ya have—"

"— _things_!" Sandro interjected, angry to be cursed at and shut down exactly the same as always. "She makes sure I have _things_ when what I need is _a Mother!_ Throwing money isn't parenting, or at least not a form deserving any particular 'respect!'"

"Oh ahm about ta show ya a 'form of parenting deservin your respect,'" Red-Turtle growled, and smoke might as well have been billowing off of him as he circled Sandro like some volcanic tiger. "You have _no idea_ how hard she works _for you_ , and you won't open your eyes ta even _look_."

NEITHER OF YOU EVEN WANTS ME, so maybe just LEAVE ME ALONE and stop PLANNING MY LIFE!

"She works because she's loves her _job,_ " Sandro snarled back. "It has _nothing_ to do with me; You didn't even want kids! At best I'm an _excuse_ to do what you both want to do anyway: Break stories, and play Nightwatch—!"

"—you shut your mouth and you listen good," Raphael snarled, and even without shouting his voice had all the physical presence of a crushing weight, "cause Ahm only gonna say this _one time_. Your mother is the best goddamn—"

So Sandro exploded to be louder for once in his entire life: "Mah mother is a distant, authoritarian, _unlovin'_ BITCH! _"_

* * *

...Hours later, Wildcard leaned forward and peered knowingly up into her sensei's face. "Raphael and Sandro must have gotten in a fight," she concluded. "They got in a huge fight, didn't they?"

"They got in a huge fight," Leo echoed softly, and she might as well have been pulling teeth with how hard it was to get him to talk.

"And Raphael whooped his ass?" she prompted, but the way her sensei's mouth twitched (almost like a grimace) told her that playful words like 'whooped' had no place in any description of these events. "Oh. It was an _ugly_ fight," she revised.

Leo nodded once, with a graceful closing and opening of his eyes as he lowered and raised his head. "I am to understand some colorful things were said in the heat of the moment," he appended for her benefit. "Had I been there, I could have intervened immediately and prevented the situation from reaching that point. As it was, Sandro handled it alone, until..."

* * *

CRACK. Blinding pain shot up once more through his knee. The dojo carpets weren't enough padding, and even then rug burn seared up his forearm. He sucked in hard, raw breaths through his beak, and shoved against the ground with all his heat, all his anger, to get himself upright as sweat dripped off his arms and soaked his shirt. He only had one kama left, and his knuckles were white on it.

"Get up," Raphael commanded him, his voice building into another low roar. "Get up n' put ya kama where ya fat mouth is, _one more time_ , boy...!"

Sandro twisted to look up at him, breathed in deep, and hissed a low, violently incensed rattle to promise he'd do just that. His good leg pushed him upright, and he staggered when adrenaline made him over correct his balance, and then he had all but a instant to fix that and hold him ground, because Raphael was going to barrel into him _hard—_

Hamato Sandro didn't see or even hear the footsteps which raced across the dojo, but he heard the low whistle of a spinning weapon and a crunch as wood met flesh. A sai went flying, and Raphael skid to a halt to confront whoever had just interrupted him. Unexpectedly, Red Turtle barely even had time to whirl about, and then someone had outright _tackled_ him, bull rushing him back into the wall behind him with a thunderous crack of the shell. And that, that tackle was the craziest thing because nobody— _nobody_ —ought to have been throwing themselves a straight-up grapple with Raphael, where all that really mattered was brute force.

Sandro staggered, eyes widening as he looked from turtle to turtle, as they writhed and seized at each others arms and roared right in one-another's faces. The person fighting Raphael was _Donatello._

"Stop!" feel meekly out of Sandro's mouth. He tried to step forward to reach them, but stumbled because his leg was numb or burning or some combination of both. " _Stop!_ It's okay!"

"What the FUCK are you doin!?" Raphael roared. "Get off me!"

"What are _you_ doing!?" Donatello shrieked back. "He can't stand!"

"Disciplinin' this foul-mouthed _BRAT_ you've taught ta-!"

"You wanna hit someone that badly!? Then hit ME! _Go on_!" Donatello goaded, and got his wish (CRACK) as the two of them struggled, but then shouted down Raphael's taunt that one better be careful what they ask for with: "Fine! _I_ can _take it,_ you lunatic! He's just a _child_!"

" _Donnie_!" Sandro pleaded as hysteria mounted up in him. He didn't want this, _he didn't want this_! (Just like Wild hadn't wanted anyone to see her _Dad_ at his worst.) He didn't want them fighting. He didn't want Donatello being _hit_! "Donnie! Donnie, it's _fine!_ " He tried to stand, and faltered again, but this time he did not fall, because someone caught his arm and pulled it over their shoulder to give him an anchor to lean on...

...Someone who wasn't bigger than him.

Sandro looked over in shock to see his mother helping him to stand. April grasped his face to look into his eyes, and to feel the sweat and trembles, and then swiftly she looked down to where his shin guard was torn, and red bruises were creeping along his knee and hip. "Mom," he croaked, flinching hard when her fingers settled on his plastron, where his shirt had been cut open. There was a deep, long, straight gouge from navel to the edge of the scute. It... it didn't feel like much. It was bloodless, right? Just a scratch, by definition, and that was the truth!

"Mikey," she called behind her as Leonardo leaped into the fray somewhere beyond them. "Mikey, get him to the needle room. Sit him down and give him some water."

"No," Sandro mumbled, pawing at her arm. "Mom, I'm fine."

"You will be," April agreed and cupped his face again, and everything about her was strong and could be relied upon. "But please let us get you out of the fight."

"Donnie-"

"Donatello is also going to be fine."

He might have found the strength to argue, to fight, to protest that he didn't _want_ to leave and lose his voice to how all this ended, but Mikey came up and actually lifted him off the ground and _carried_ him away, and Sandro was way too old (and much too hurt) to squeal, kick and tantrum midair for things he didn't even know how to articulate.

* * *

Amidst the roars and physical and verbal arguing, a sharp voice stood out crystal clear: " _Raphael._ "

There had only ever been one other person in the entire world who could—with a single word—cause every, single testosterone-riled and adrenaline-rushed giant, male turtle in the vicinity to _immediately freeze_ and rivet to attention, regardless of where they were or who they were presently in the middle of hitting. Fists stopped mid-air, insults died in incomplete sentences, and Leonardo slowly released Raphael; he'd been trying to hamper his strongest brother for the brawl with Donatello, more than anything else, and now clearly there was no more need.

They turned, all three of them, to see April standing there before them, only five feet and nine inches tall. Her auburn hair might as well have sparked to fire red, as thin brows narrowed over a piercingly dark stare. Whatever tone of voice it was that she'd just used upon them, it was one Leonardo himself had never been able to faithfully replicate. April tilted her head, slowly, looking from Leonardo, to Donatello, and finally back to Raphael. "Donnie," she suggested, "go help Sandro."

Donatello and Raphael disengaged, but there was something about this, something unspoken and familiar about the anticipatory tension knowing someone was about to get a dressing-down in the dojo from their elder, and age-old feelings like _solidarity_ settled in. April hadn't ordered him out, so Donnie didn't leave; merely backed up a few hesitant steps to stare. That was good enough.

"Ape," Raphael huffed, finding his balance as he turned towards her. "Listen-"

April started across the floor towards him in measured strides. "Is _that_ what you are...?" her voice growled and snaked ahead of her in a way they seldom ever got to hear it. "That? Some sort of... good old fashion, out of control," Raphael leaned away as her voice gained in volume, "beer-guzzling, wife-beater t-shirt wearing, _trailer trash_ sort of dad?" She reached him and shoved at his chest, and Raphael stumbled back a step. "Is THAT what you are?"

"I- I was tryin ta-!"

"Trying to what!? What _excuse_ could possibly justify what you just did? Huh!? Explain to me, Raphael!" her voice was now loud and strong over his, scathing as Raphael retreated step by step, flinching and cringing under each swat and jab. "Are you a _beast_ who can't control himself in the presence of his own child!? Is this insecurity, some bruised masculine pride, that you can't handle being taunted by _a fourteen-year-old!?_ "

"But he called ya an-!"

April slapped him, hard enough that they could hear it, hard enough that his head jerked to the side and the sound echoed. Raphael staggered, and barely dared to look back at her from the corner of his eye. She reached up, and grabbed the lip of his plastron to pull him an inch nearer, and she said to him: "I don't care if he called me the Mother Fucking Queen Delight of the Red Light District. If you _ever_ again lay a hand on our son in anger, you will regret it until the day you die. Do you hear me? Because long before anyone even had to devise a means of punishing you, you'd just never be able to face yourself in a mirror again. You wouldn't recognize, or forgive, the reflection of a man who beats and cuts his own kid."

Raphael looked at the floor, now trembling from sole to crown; in shock, in awareness, in complete submission to her.

April shoved him back by the plastron, and the dojo carpets picked that moment to trip him. He landed with hard crack, cringed, and then lifted his hands to grasp at and cover his head. He didn't look up at any of them, but he was visibly shaking.

Leonardo looked quietly between the two of them, with empathy he could not demonstrate. He had never had this kind of power over his own family, nor this gift to open their minds to their own strengths and weaknesses, and so he had never truly succeeded their father. Leonardo could not speak such that Raphael would listen; could not even _get involved_ in any problem involving Sandro without following Donatello's lead, for fear of starting another fight that would permanently tear their bonds to one another.

He turned, extraneous to the situation and its emotions, and touched Donatello's arm. Donnie looked to him and then rapidly nodded. Perhaps it was time they check on Sandro. Raphael's voice could be heard behind them as they hurried out, soft as air, as the frantic realization of what he had done settled in upon him:

"I'm _sorry."_


	57. My Sons

"Look at me... I know. I _know_."

Behind them, April slowly knelt to eased her hands in under Raphael's, to reach his face and speak with him in hushed and murmured tones. Ahead of them, Sandro's shout carried to them down the hallway from the needle room—the family clinic—as they approached, which at any other time would have been impressive given how well padded the room was against noise:

"I didn't ask to be carried out!" the boy screamed, presumably at Michelangelo. "I wanted to stay! I'm fine! I don't want to be in here!" Flustered pause. "No one ever listens to me! _EVER_!" Commotion. "Fuck _you_! _LISTEN TO ME!_ I'm FINE!"

Leo closed his eyes. The raw and frayed state of Sandro's voice was terrifying: channeling anger, hysteria, guilt, and denial in a maddened attempt to wind back time to before his world had started toppling. The very sound of it promised that the emotional poison burning through their nephew's psyche was even now leaving behind wounds none of them knew how to _see,_ much less treat.

Donatello faltered just outside the door with his hand upon the latch, listening. Leo looked to him, watching his brother's facial expression twitch between widely disparate emotions: Contempt for Raphael and a heated conviction that _this_ had been the final straw; A frantic, urgent, need to see, reassure, and touch their nephew; But also _dread, terror_ on the threshold of learning how deep these non-physical cracks had grown, and whether he had the ability to mend them.

For Sandro's 'I'm fine' sounded like an attempt to defend his father's actions, or at least _protect_ him from scrutiny. But Leo also swore their nephew's anger, lashing out in all directions as it was, meant Sandro was smart enough to know that that way Raphael treated him was wrong, and that he was angry at his father. Surely those standpoints—defending him and blaming him—were contradictory? Yet Leo swore he heard both.

Donatello wasn't moving. He stood poised there before the door.

Donnie was afraid; Leo could smell it. Donnie looked so overwhelmed in that moment that even the knowledge that his nephew was badly injured couldn't move him. Detached, Leo tilted his head to the side, wondering why this look familiar. Donnie liked to spout anxious streams of data when people were injured, but Leo had never seen him _freeze_ before. To freeze suggested Donatello's mind wasn't working, that he not only lacked a sureness of what to do next but also couldn't come up with any line of thought that would lead him to a next-best fix.

Insecurity. Donatello feared opened that door because he feared failing the little boy beyond, and feared that his skill—not with sutures, but with emotions—might not be enough. Feared that the damage would become permanent because he did not know what to say, or what to do, and that perhaps the crucial moment at which he had needed to _act_ was already lost long ago.

Leo's eyes widened. He looked before Donatello and the door, drawing a blank. Something from the pit of his soul stirred up, clutching an _omamori_ bearing an inscription of what to do. _Go on_ , the words arrived internally and he mutely urged his brother forward by thought alone. _Go on, go inside, get to him._ The words rose up on the back of his tongue—

—but before he managed to get them out (or failed to get them out), Donatello cracked open the door. Whether this was because Donatello was strong, or whether it was owed to conditioning by Michelangelo, Leo could not say, but in that moment he deeply envied their youngest brother (and Raphael, to a lesser extent) their ability to _feel_ and _act_ in unison. Donatello peered in.

"D!" Mikey called to him and then hurried up to the door. "Hold up! Lemme talk to you first!"

" _First_?" Donatello croaked incredulously, as if he hadn't just been paralyzed for the better part of a minute and so getting inside was an urgent emergency. "Is he okay? Is the leg–?" Mikey slipped his way out of the needle room, but got the door shut behind him without giving Donnie much of a look inside. Feeling like a passive observer, Leo wondered whether this might be Mikey's way of giving Sandro a few minutes alone, perhaps to calm down on compose his thoughts.'

"Kay he's not gonna be walking on that leg for a few days, I don't think, but you can check later. Hey! Hey, wait, hear me out!"

"Why are you _blocking_ me!?" Donnie had caught on. "Let me see him!"

"Yo, I _totally_ would cause the number one thing he needs right now is clearly emergency tender loving care. But _hear me out_!"

"What could possibly be more urgent than-!?" Huff. Donatello shifted his posture, and took in a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, I'm listening." It seemed a testament to the quality of time Orange and Purple had spent together that Donnie had apparently cultivated a fully-formed habit of listening to his younger brother. Once upon a time, Donnie would have been the first person to gently euphemize that Mikey was a little stupid.

"I've got an idea," Michelangelo said. "And you're not going to like it, but you gotta agree. Let me ask April if Raphie can be the one to patch Sandro up."

" _WHAT_!?" Donatello exploded loud enough that surely the entire house could hear him. Mikey cringed and Donatello lowered his voice to scathe with tone instead of volume: "That _hothead_ shouldn't be allowed within ten yards of _any_ child after what we just saw, and you want to put him in a position to benefit from Sandro's filial loyalty and guilt complexes just minutes after he _beat_ him!?"

"Give Raphie the chance to apologize," Michelangelo insisted. "He's our brother, not some monster, trust me!"

"That's the exact thinking and pattern of abuse I plan to avoid: A cycle of violence followed by 'apologies' that make nothing better for anyone but Raphael! No! I'm not going to give him that fresh feeling of absolution, not after this!"

"One time isn't a pattern, Don. Raphie can start fixing this, and instead of running out and taking it out on himself, he can–"

"Raphael can _burn in hell_ ," Donatello spat. "The only thing anyone should be asking April is if weekend 'Ninjitsu Lessons' can be canceled indefinitely until that brute can prove he won't–"

"Don't you see that's exactly what Sandro's scared you'll do!? Take his _dad_ away from him!? You can't just go in there as the person who knows him best, and heroically leaped to his defense, and tell him you're going to do exactly what he's most terrified you'll do! Don't you see what that'll do to him?!"

"You were scared of having splinters removed from your fingers as a child; that didn't mean they could stay under your skin!" Donatello replied, in utter disgust. "We turned a blind eye to every glaring sign that 'tough love' had turned to verbal _and_ physical abuse _for years_ —every single one of us! Everyone except Leo—but no one stood on Leo's side when in that stupid fight against Raphael—and _now_ look where we are!"

"Sandro _loves_ Raphael," Michelangelo answered him firmly, as if it trumped everything else and was a point he would not back down from.

"Donatello," Leo interrupted quietly, and both his youngest brothers looked to him. "Attempting to separate Sandro from either of his parents will shatter him, them, and us. Before you commit to such a course of action, perhaps you should exhaust other options."

"And what? Forgive that lunatic?! Pretend he's learned his lesson and wait for this to happen _again_!? You know, I miss the days when you actually _fought_ for what was right instead of noncommittally siding with whatever won't rock the boat!"

"The Raphael we grew up alongside is capable of improvement," Leo said. "And now we have an excuse to watch more closely and intervene more swiftly in the future." Donatello threw up his arms and turned away. "Donnie. Sandro's primary request for help has been consistent from first to last: That he be consulted as to his own feelings and desires, instead of having 'what is best' chosen for him by others."

Donatello shuddered out a deep breath, and then covered his face with a hand.

* * *

Sandro glared daggers after Michelangelo as his uncle left the room. _'I am listening,'_ Mikey had said, but Sandro didn't know who or what to believe. No one was on his side except for when they were, but then everything turned around and changed days or hours or minutes later.

The second the door closed, Sandro felt a geysers of emotions explode up within himself, so hard and fast he physical convulsed. He rapidly slapped hands over his mouth, stifling screams or sobs—or maybe hysterical laughter, was this how Wild normally felt?. Tears beaded at his eyes. He'd never felt so out of control in his life. Anger was one thing, anger had a way of stealing the steering wheel, but when he was angry Sandro could still always see the high-speed car crash looming ahead. _This_ was like having a roller coaster thundering wildly through every organ, electrocuting his nerves and leaving him ready to leap out of his skin or maybe vomit.

He had to get this under control. He had to put it inside because there was nowhere else for it to go. The problems causing it couldn't be fixed by any means available to him, and if anyone saw it, the situation would only get worse. If he could hide it away, and if he could play everything off as 'no big deal,' then even though everyone else was freaking out and angry, his apathetic reaction would reduce the chance someone would take something (someone) away from him, or say things to each other that couldn't be unsaid, or do things to one another, or lay down ultimatums.

He had to hold it together! To be annoyed instead of hurt, and then maybe—maybe—everything wouldn't fall apart forever.

(Donatello trying to cut off Raphael; Mom finding about Wild and never forgiving Donnie for lying to her; Everyone fighting Everyone; Leo yielding until he couldn't yield anymore; A fight about parenting; A fight about usurping parental authority; Betrayal/Anger/Hurt; And no predictable outcomes in sight except for the dead certainty that things would never be okay again, and bridges would burn, and anyone could be lost forever (and at least one someone would be lost forever either way it fell): uncles, parents, sister; And those relationships would be forever changed or lost or altogether _imaginary_ —STOP) STOP) STOP!

Calm down. Calm down. Hold it inside. Put it all underground and bury it. Keep it together, keep the family together. Rehearse:

 _'Donnie, I'm okay. Injured, obviously, but perfectly okay. I'm used to it (used to the taunts, the sneers, the near-disgust, the hits, the never being good enough, the way he can swear and I can't) Yeah, I know he shouldn't have wailed on me like that and I'm pissed, but it's not entirely his fault. I was asking for it.'_

 _It's my fault._ Sandro rocked himself, a hand over his mouth, tears leaking down his cheeks.

It's all my fault, and I fucked up everything, and this was supposed to be the day everything started getting better because I'd start being honest, and I could start fixing everything, and I screwed it all up.

 _No. Be angry. Angry is better than this. Angry is easy. Who is going to blame you for being angry? No one, not anymore._ Sandro's fingers were white-knuckled on the edge of the medical cot. He glared through the ground, his heavy and emotional breaths slowly solidifying into a steady, solid-postured glare. _Be angry at them for dragging you out of the dojo. Be angry at him, cause that will make them listen._

* * *

The door to the needle room opened. Donatello must have surveyed him from afar for a second before entering, because the sound of footsteps was delayed. As he entered, he selected and took first-aid supplies off the walls. He opened the room's miniature freezer with a rush of cool air, and took out what sounded like soft gel ice packs. The same sort Sandro had once bandaged Wildcard up with. Then footsteps padded quietly up beside him.

"Can I _go_?" Sandro muttered in refractory defiance, refusing to even look. "I'm _fine_."

"Sounds familiar."

Sandro nearly leaped clean out of his shell at that sound of that voice, and turned in shock to see Raphael looming over him, blocking out so much more light than anyone else could. How deep in his own head had Sandro been not to _sense_ the presence of his father? "I-!" he fumbled to push himself up to meet the older turtle.

"Maybe sit ya tail down," Raphael said quietly. Sandro obeyed with a plop, staring wide-eyed and then meekly ducking his head. This was not within the set of things his brain had prepared for with what limited resources remained to it. This was pure nonsense. Nonsense, ha. Ha ha. His fingers were all glued like vices about the edge of the cot. Was he rocking himself?

Large hands touched him, broader especially across the palm than Donatello's, as Raphael leaned over to have a better look at those bruises at the hip. Sandro tried to hold onto his own breathing so it didn't escape him, but fortunately the universe didn't throw another curve ball. Those hands draped linen and cold gel packs carefully over the injuries at the hip and knee. One reached behind him to brace the shell as the other's palm pushed firmly into his plastron, and his father's nearness made him subconsciously lean away.

"S'that hurt?"

"N-no. I don't think so."

"Ya ever push on part of a person's plastron and watch em swoon, it means a rib's fractured," his father said, letting go of his shell and squatting down to run a finger along the edge of the gouge. It wasn't, as Sandro had previously hoped, bloodless, not with how much it hurt to be touched and was a little moist. "Can't do jack with a busted rib. Can't even exercise ta get the steam out, cause it compromises core muscles."

"Stop," Sandro was a unit of tension. "Did Mom put you up to coming in here?"

He felt Raphael look at him. "Uhm. No."

"Then _why_ _you_?" The words came out on their own

His father was silent a moment, and then cleared his throat and looked down. "Ya... want me ta get Donnie?"

"No," the words surged up like ocean tide, with an energy of their own, "I want to know why you _hate_ me."

"I-I don't hate you, kid." The raw reply cracked softly. "What's ta hate?"

"You don't like me. The only time you'll spend with me is practice, and even then you barely talk to me, and I bet you don't even know my favorite movie or game or color or anything. You only smile if you get to tell me how I'm doing something wrong. You're never proud, just-just _disgusted_ if I'm not tough enough, and angry with me if I am."

"That's not... not what that _means_." The tone ought to have grown exasperated or annoyed with him for being ridiculous, but instead the usually blasting and draconic voice remained softer even than a rumble. "Kid–"

"You don't even call me by my name." The words rose up, teering on the crest of a slowly rising tidal wave. "Just 'runt,' 'snot,' 'little shit,' 'boy,' 'kid.'"

"S- _sandro._ " Raphael leaned over him, but that only made him feel even more helpless, "I swear to you on mah dad's grave, I will never, _ever_ , get into the ring with you when I'm mad again. I will _nevah_ do this ta ya again." Fingers settled hesitantly on his shell. "I'm sorry. Ahm _real sorry_."

Sandro clawed at that hand and shoved it away, to get it off of himself, not watching to be touched. "I don't care," he spat, because these internal words were in possession of him. "I don't care, I just want to know ' _why?'_ I know I pissed you off, but you just kept picking on me, and on Mikey! I was just trying to talk to you!"

"I shouldn't have..." Raphael shifted in place, and the weird thing was _he was listening_ because he asked: "Talk about _what_?"

"Mom. About _mom,_ " Sandro spit out in utter frustration he'd failed to even notice.

Raphael furrowed brows at him. "Ya just called ya mom a bitch."

Sandro whipped about to face his father, teeth grit, flushed with fury. "Maybe _she is_. Why do you always treat me like she needs protection from me? I'm her son. I need her and love her more than you _ever possibly could._ But because of _you,_ because you shut me up and shout me down, andbecause she's so _sure of everything_ , because you _tag-team_ me, I'm scared _shitless_ of her, and that _hurts_!"

Gold eyes widened at him.

The wave inside was a tsunami, carrying him along: "I deserve to be heard as much as anyone else! And sometimes I just want fifteen seconds where no one is patronizin or screamin at—or _throwin_ me—to say what I want! And I'm _so angry_ at both of you, and at _everyone else_ because it's leakin out through the cracks and now I'm just _angry all the time_ , and I don't feel either of you care about me and everyone else just ignores it cause you're in charge, and Ahve speant _months_ tryin ta work up the courage to tell her in private, and instead told _you_ at the _worst possible time,_ and _the worst possible way,_ and I know that because I _saw_ you were in a bad mood, and I know that's when I'm supposed to duck my head and nod and behave!" he was sobbing and yet shouting his lungs out at the same time, to the point where he was nearly certain he'd have lost his voice by the next morning—if Raphael didn't kill him first, "but I can't do it anymore, no matter how hard I fucking try, I can't freeze and keep it inside even when I know I have to, when I _know_ I have to, because I HAVE A BAD TEMPER AND CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF OR MAH GODDAMN TONE OF VOICE!"

And with the tsunami finally a mile high and crashing down on everything, Sandro whipped away just as fast, cringed and tensed and staring at nothing, shaking violently.

The little clinic was painfully silent, and silent long enough that rage dripped in tears down Sandro's face, until he couldn't really see the nothing he was glaring at anyways. One thing that apparently _hadn't_ happened was that Raphael hadn't socked him in the jaw for once more calling his mother a bitch.

"I don't hate you, kid," Raphael slowly murmured. "You hate me."

The cot creaked. His father had sat down beside him, and was watching him not in anger but in what—by process of logical deduction— could only be some kind of brokenhearted, understanding quiet. Not that _that_ was believable. On the verge of sobs, Sandro had to do something to get the older turtle _away_.

"I-if I'm an obligation," his voice trembled and crackled and whimpered as it shouldn't have, "than I don't want to be. You can just give me to one of your brothers."

"So which of ya uncles do ya wish was ya da?" The low tone of his voice wasn't dangerous or even angry, but Sandro wasn't sane enough to understand what else it could be.

"I wish _you_ were my dad," he answered, angry tears beading as the internal geyser bloomed higher and higher. "I wish you were happy to see me, and that knocking up my mother hadn't been 'a mistake,' and that you didn't treat me like she needed protection from me. I wish when Leo told me I should talk to you about my feelings, I didn't know you'd tell me to stop being a pussy. I wish you wanted me; and I wish _you were home._ "

 _Escape. Escape. Get someplace you can destroy something and cry._ Sandro shoved against the cot, trying to get upright, shedding ice-packs. Of course he should have predicted the hands which grabbed him from behind, pulling him back to restrain him. He _screamed_ then, lashing out, shoving at the arms and trying to convey with every ounce of his voice, posture, and aura that he _needed_ to be left alone, _needed_ not to be restrained, _needed_ to get out of there no matter how hurt he was or wasn't.

No 'sit ya tail down' came, nor did Raphael shove him down into the cot and hold him there. Arms got around Sandro's plastron from behind. Grab by grab, Raphael's arms got around his arms. It wasn't the _cot_ which Raphael dragged him back down to. Several kicks and flails and shrieks into the grapple, Sandro was struck by the horrifying realization that he could hear his father's hammering heartbeat. This was because he was in the older turtle's lap and squeezed up against his plastron. Because Raphael was hugging him.

Sandro screamed, wormed, flailed, writhed, scratched.

Sandro quivered, choked, snuffled.

Sandro collapsed into the embrace and began sobbing; raw, and anguished and lost.

"Please," Raphael whispered into the top of his head, engulfing him, rocking him. " _Please,_ you're mah son. Mah one and only son. I loved you the moment I first evah picked ya up, and I love ya today, and Ah'll always love ya. _Please._ "


	58. Snakebite and Black

"... Well?!" a scrape-cheeked Wildcard demanded to know. "Did Donnie and April let Raphael try? How did the 'apology' go? Was Mikey right? Did they get in another fight?" An immense amount of additional details pertaining to the present and future emotional condition of her best friend was desperately needed, and Leo seemed to think three sentences and a few vague grimaces was enough! Blasphemy!

Her Sensei took a deep breath and lifted his head, and either this was where the story had ended or else he'd determined he'd said enough. "I am positive you will be provided with a full narrative on Monday by someone who is a much more riveting storyteller than I."

Wild sat back on her heels and eyed him vexedly for a moment and then sighed rubbed her sore face and looked down, thinking about how long and far away Monday was. She wanted to be with Sandro _right now._ "You're always trying to dump me off on Mikey, Sensei," she mentioned. "I can't decide if you honestly want to get rid of me, are hilariously insecure, or both, but by now I've decided I'm just gonna make fun of you every time you try."

 _Hyello, Earth to Wild: You just threw knives at this person, remember? And now you're trying to tease him, as if *he* had a problem?_ Wildcard jerked her head up swiftly to apologize, and found her sensei watching her again instead of evading eye-contact. Wild hesitated. She was a near-stranger still, right? A dangerous stranger? Instead of disapproving, Leo sat there with this hesitantly unguarded look upon his face, as if he were asking her, 'Did I fix this? Did I understand you? Did I do this one thing right?'

Startled, she reached out and tried to touch him. Tried. She invaded his personal space, unsolicited. Leo remained in seiza, unmoving, unresponsive; and Wild hesitantly touched his shoulders and the upper lip of his shell, and then scooted herself forward and hugged him about the neck. When he didn't speak or throw her away or anything, she squeezed tightly and closed her eyes, and hoped she belonged there. _Do I belong to you? Is that it?_

She heard him take in a slow, deep breath. Then the muscles at his shoulders and collar bones shifted as he presumably lifted both hands. He didn't hug her, though. Presumably, he instead sat there with each hand raised on either side of her, fingers partially flexed, like a statue.

The seconds ticked by in awkward silence. Wildcard held her breath. _Please._

Neck muscles flexed as he turned his face slightly towards her. Both forearms settled quietly around her. One hand cupped the back of her head. Wildcard breathed, frightened nerves fading down into soothed quiet. This was her family now. Her turtles plus her dad. This was her _family_ , and she had a _place_ , and even though things were messed up and people were hurting, somehow the important things would be okay. She'd _make_ them okay. And she'd get a message to Sandro, too, somehow, to help tide him over until she could hug him in person.

"Do not throw live steel at anyone without invitation ever again, Kinpōge-kun," Sensei finally cleared his throat to lecture. "Regardless of their capabilities, or yours. It is both unsafe and incredibly rude. We will discuss exactly how unsafe and how rude on Monday, as a deterrent to future violent outbursts, and you may or may not end up in _Hashi_."

She found a weak smile fluttering on her mouth. "Would you help me with something?" she croaked.

"With what?"

"I'm scared. What if I don't make it till Monday?" she whispered. "I'm already an insomniac. I'll panic. My dad'll watch me, cause he'll suspect something, but as soon as night hits and he goes to bed, I'll do something stupid."

"If you know this, why are you going to do it?"

"I don't know, I'm not a mind reader. Ask future-me if you see her. Lemme know what she says."

* * *

It took a solid half an hour for Donatello to finally be _granted_ access to his own clinic, and by then he was conserved and silent, waiting before the door with arms tensely crossed, eyes narrowed, and an etched frown. He didn't glance at Michelangelo and stepped in briskly, walking up to the cot. He _did_ make brief eye-contact with Raphael, a venomous, slashing scimitar of a glare. Then he looked down to Sandro, to 'double-check' his violent brother's nursing handiwork.

Sandro blinked quietly up at him with red-rimmed eyes, looking utterly exhausted. The bandages across his plastron had been expertly applied, the knee and shin had been wrapped in a gentle compression sleeve to help control swelling and alleviate pain, and the injuries were bound with ice packs. "Hi," Sandro said.

"Did you give him anything for the pain?" Donatello asked.

"Just acetaminophen," Raphael answered.

"How much?"

Raphael was silent a second, and Donatello could hear a long string of snarky or irritated comebacks that never actually came. "1000mg. Normal dose. Told him he could have the third pill if it didn't do enough, but he hasn't asked for it." And Raphael had been injured enough throughout his life to know proper dosages for pain medication, thank you very much, but he didn't say so.

Donatello flicked a glance back up towards his brother, and perhaps his proverbial 'hackles' settled a degree. Sandro wasn't the only person who looked exhausted, and even though Donnie didn't have much compassion for his brother at the moment, the soporific atmosphere did mildly settle his nerves... He had a few choice words to say, but he'd wait to say them.

For now, Donnie looked back to Sandro. "You're going to need to use a crutch for a few days," he told the boy softly. "I don't want you putting weight on this."

"I know," Sandro capitulated instantly, with no protest at all.

"Well... well then. The bandages are fine. Was your plastron injured?"

"Yeah," Raphael spoke up against himself. "Gouged to the pink. It didn't bleed, but really needed some ointment ta keep it clean."

 _You hit him across the belly with a sai?!_ Donnie looked up to Raphael in glowering disbelief, but then shook his head. _Don't yell. Sandro doesn't need to hear you yell, not when he's already calm._ "Very _well_ ," he pressed the words down neatly. "I'll _assume_ you tested whether anything was dislocated?" Raphael nodded.

"Doesn't hurt as much as my knee," Sandro supplied.

"Yeah? I'll bet, that looked like it felt awful." Donnie took a deep breath. "Okay. Finish that bottle of water for me, and then let's get you to your room. You look like you could use a nap. Sound good?" Sandro nodded. Donatello stood and moved to obtain a crutch, but no sooner had he stepped away that Raphael moved. Donnie tensed, bristled, and looked quickly back. What he saw put a puzzled frown on his face: Raphael leaned over, picked the startled boy clear off the cot, and hoisted him up to rest against his plastron and shoulder.

"Got 'im, D."

Donatello wrinkled his nose, because waiting on a victim hand-and-foot for an hour was no substitute for actually fixing anything. Still, Sandro did not look distressed or flustered, and Raphael was being 'thoughtful' and gentle (and maybe even affectionate, Donnie's knowledge base nagged) in one of the only ways Raphael really knew how. Donnie decided not to take issue. He picked up the crutch and led the way back to Sandro's room. Raphael followed wordlessly.

* * *

The worst part about having an injured leg and being confined to a bed was being unable to roll around in the aforementioned bed if one grew uncomfortable.

Sandro blinked awake and stared at the ceiling. Then he looked over at his alarm clock. He'd slept for almost six hours, and everything hurt. Not just his leg, either, but also his arm under the bandages and ointment for rug burn, and his elbows and wrists and shoulders and every part of him that had soaked the force of blocking those Sai, and on top of that he was probably sure he had a headache, too.

He felt drained. Too drained to feel anything whatsoever about what had happened to him. Any of it.

The door knob leading into his room twisted, and then a sliver of golden light trickled in. He looked over and squinted.

"Hey honey," April greeted, carrying a tall glass of water fizzling with Vitamin C tablets, and a small plate of food. "Can I come in?" Mom was probably the only person who ever asked if she could come into his room, which as near as Sandro could figure was courtesy of a difference in how Turtles and Normal People felt about Having One's Own Room.

"Yeah," he rasped because despite that water from earlier, his mouth felt dry.

April came in and sat gingerly upon the side of the bed as she settled down her deliveries. "I brought you some more Tylenol." That sounded fantastic right now, or at least as fantastic as anything could really be. "Do you think you might want to try and eat a little bit? I brought a banana and some toast at the recommendation of our Handy Dandy Donatello."

"Not really..."

She nodded understandingly, and reached under his pillow. "C'mon, let me help you sit."

"I didn't break my _arms_ ," Sandro mumbled, but truth be told the coddling felt—um— _disarming_. He ended up sagging into his mother as she gave him the acetaminophen tablets and the water. "Thanks."

Mom gave him a little squeeze and just made sure he had his balance and all that. For her sake, he galvanized himself into taking a bite of that banana. And then another, and another; Donatello knew exactly which foods soothed the stomach when eating anything sounded horrible. She settled the plate back down with the discarded peel and shunned toast, and helped him lift his leg back up and get under the covers again without too much discomfort. Once he'd gotten back into place, she leaned the back of her forearm gently across his head.

"Well," she said, "I've been advised to change out the ice packs for fresh ones as long as you aren't running a fever. How do you feel? Chilled at all?"

"No, I'm warm. Mom? I... I called you some stuff. When Dad got mad."

"So I've heard," she quipped almost wryly, and did not sound angry. "But you know what, hon?" She leaned over, and kissed his bandanna at the brow. "There's plenty of time to talk about things like that on some other day. You don't owe me anything. Certainly not an apology."

He sort of felt like he did. Nothing he'd said had been entirely _untrue_ , and he'd probably captured the spirit of how helpless he sometimes felt against her. But as she sat beside him and pet gently over his cheek, shoulder, and shell, with her pretty red hair and her reassuring smile, all of his nasty words weighed on him down to his bones. He resented her and was theoretically angry at her (it was hard to feel anything at the moment), and simultaneously he adored her and was grateful for her; It shouldn't have been possible for all those things to be simultaneously true. The opacity of the whole matter was worsened by how, right now, the only thing he wanted to do was curl up against her and never let her leave.

"Thanks for checking up on me," he settled for saying instead.

"Is there anything else you need?" she asked. "Aside from fresh ice packs, I mean. Do you need to talk to anyone, or to use the restroom, or...?"

 _I need lots of stuff largely inapplicable to the narrow context of the question._ "I don't think so." _Although a sister sounds nice right about now._ Wild probably really would let him curl up with her; she had a sweet side like that. The trick would be getting anyone else to let her onto his bed with him.

Mom looked at his glass of water, and bit her lip. "Would you, um, mind if I sat with you for a bit, maybe until you fall asleep again?"

"... Okay."

* * *

That punching bag hadn't needed to be restuffed in years, and this evening it had been torn within the first five minutes. Which was, naturally, why the spare bag existed and why it stayed in arm's reach.

April paused in the entryway to the exercise room, watching each heavy punch. She watched the sweat slicking his shoulders and arms. Raphael had been at it for the better part of the evening, and they were lucky he'd wrapped his hands. Donnie would not have been impressed to find April dragging Raphael into the clinic. When he was angry at himself, Raphael had a habit of ending up with raw and bloody knuckles, and a very stained punching bag—as if the blood and pain ought to be some price of admission to hsi own stress relief.

"Hey asshole," she called.

Raphael grabbed the bag and stilled it so he could hear her, but he did not turn around.

"I love you," she told him. "And I have faith in you."

He lowered his head and was still for a bit. Then he went back to assaulting that punching bag.

* * *

 _'Donnie can only patch up the physical stuff,'_ Mikey had said. _'Only one person can try to fix the rest.'_

 _'If you dare to make any promise to him,'_ April had told him with her hand still in his but her voice grave, _'even just to say that this won't happen again, be sure you can and will keep them. Because otherwise he deserves fair warning that you can't.'_

 _'I feel ill to my stomach just standing in the same room as you,'_ Donatello hadn't pulled any punches. _'The fact that you are my brother doesn't help anything. Fix it, if you can. But be aware it will take time, not you storming off to feel sorry for yourself at the bottom of a shot glass, or gutter, or in a drunken fist fight with the Panthers.'_

* * *

After showering, Raphael went to his bedroom, but found the door was locked. He'd shared that room with April since before Sandro was born, and it wasn't the first time it had been locked on him. 'I don't want to be tempted into murdering you in your sleep,' April had explained the very first time.

Raphael leaned upon it for a long moment, wanting his bed, wanting her smell, (sex would be one hell of a way to cool off and stay cool) but then he let out a sigh and pushed himself upright. "Yeah, that's fair." So, there was the guest bedroom, or the couch, or... He paused at room he'd shared with Leo since the time they'd been small, and knocked awkwardly.

Leo was still awake and answered with, "Come in."

Raphael cracked the door open and didn't lift his head. "Do I still own a hammock?" he asked.

"In the corner," Leo said over the pages of a book of Haiku. "There are fresh blankets, and a pillow."

"Can I maybe crash here for the night, then?"

"Of course." Leo turned a page, as if nothing at all had happened that day and this were all entirely normal.

Was kinda annoying how quiet Leo was gettin; Raphael wanted to know where the hell all the stupid lectures were, to make him feel guilty (and get him riled and ready to hit someone—ho, boy, his stomach just churned. Nevermind, Raphael didn't want any excuses to hit anyone he hadn't found in a bar. At least a lecture might make him feel properly guilty.)

"Um. Thanks."

* * *

In some form of toothless spite, Raphael went out anyway. He could have bought a case or even harder stuff from the corner mart, and then brought it home to drink, or even just underground. Instead he made tracks for the only fucked up neutral-zone dive bar in Jersey City that had a policy for serving mutants and river scum without asking questions.

He was disguised, of course. Some big-ass ugly shapeless thing in shades; either a huge body guard for the southside drug lords, or one of the Hudson's notorious mutagen experiments, or a freak like they taught upriver at Xavier's, or _whatever_. Even if they did recognize him, they knew better than to fuck with him. Nobody cared; It didn't matter. This was the slums: Low, dirty, and mean. The sort of place a monster could feel properly at home. He shoved his way onto a stool. The regular crowd was already leaving in the early morning hours.

"What'll it be?" The bartender inquired.

"A snakebite and black."

" _Ooh_. You sure you don't want whisky? I try to avoid prescribing mixtures of fruit and grain alcohol for 'bad days,' and I've almost made it to closing hour without incident."

"Spare me," he hissed, and didn't even look at the patronizing bastard. OThe old tender had been _silent_ , but word across the street was he'd taken a bullet to the leg in a shoot-out around May. One drink wasn't enough to do anything to a person Raphael's size; it just _felt_ good to piss on Donnie by ordering something that didn't come in a shot-glass _and was still mean._ His drink arrived, tall and red. He took one big mouthful and then sipped on it. Cider, lager, and black current.

"Hmm. You know, I think I recognize you," the bartender clearly couldn't take a hint. "My kid's friends with your kid."

"Sure." Not in the mood for this shit.

" _Sandro_ , right? Nice kid."

There was no one in the whole goddamn world who knew that boy's name. Raphael looked back at the bar.

Ready To Kill Danger To Family.

The tender stood there toweling off tumblers and shot glasses at the end of a long shift. He was a nondescript sorta person: Had that sorta colorless hair that wasn't brown or blonde, same thing with the eyes, bored expression; but somehin about his stance had command over the entire bar area. Like he wasn't just some little meat rag Raphael could pluck from behind the counter.

"Don't believe I caught ya name," Red-Turtle growled, easing a hand into his coat where he couldn't see.

"It's Hamilton. Andrew Hamilton. I must say you have a very nice boy. Better than my little troublemaker, at least."

Raphael's fingers curled about the sai handle.

"If memory serves, the two of them were going to talk to his mother this weekend about whether or not they could continue hanging out together. I surmise that didn't go well?"

Raphael went still. And blinked. _'Sometimes I just want fifteen seconds where no one is patronizin or screamin at—or throwin!—me to say what I *want!*'_

"... S'first I'm hearin of it," Red Turtle muttered quietly.

The bartender paused mid-glass, and his eyes flicked up. He was quiet a second. "...Oops." Then he cleared his throat with an effeminate sort of shrug and went back to cleaning glasses, "Well, don't tell them you heard about it from me. I already have enough trouble getting that child to stop playing under-aged vigilante and do homework. Can you imagine how much worse it would be if _someone_ learned I accidentally sabotaged them?" He gave a little shudder. "Teenagers."

"...What..." Raphael released the sai. "What's ya son's name?"

" _Daughter_ , actually."

* * *

It was 11:30 am Saturday morning on a bright and sunny day, the sort of day that made teens run about all willy nilly, drive out to the beach, or hiss that sunlight gave them burns and go back to sleep (depended on the teenager). Young kids ran squealing through Lincoln Park with gaggles of young mothers and football-wielding fathers in tow, at a time of day when safety wasn't an issue because everything was visible, everyone was awake, and the shadowy people of the world were all indoors playing cards and scheming schemes in anticipation of a distant dusk.

Wildcard slipped nimbly past construction workers along steel girders and swinging beams, dancing in and out of their blind spots and walking just as soon as they turned their heads. Her white leg and arms wraps, with their cushioned gel caps over the knees and elbows, and their splendid ability to negate barked shins and scraped forearms, really were 'must-have' parkour items. Was it any wonder that the turtles still used variants on 'knee and elbow pads' to this day? (If not so brown or nostalgically shaped as the eighties-era cast-offs the comics liked to dress them in). These days, exercise wear could make you feel like a character from Tron, it was all so sleek and smexy looking.

She sprinted along a girder, leaped, and pounced upon ladder of a nearby brownstone. Wind flickered past her and buffetted her hood, and then she'd landed, tabi on one rung, shins snug against the bars, hands grasping tightly. Ha! She climbed and looped herself onto the roof.

A reduced emphasis on sleuthing and mischief-making had left Wildcard bereft of interesting leads to investigate. True, she still spent plenty of time outside after her time with Sandro ended—nighttime hours only added up to one small chunk of the day, and Mikey always insisted on walking her back home so that needed to happen before it grew dark. Still, loitering around skate parks, teaching herself moves of one nature or another, and skateboarding had only taught her so much.

But she had a jist of where to find something fun to do, especially with all the drug use and low-key sales which went on in full vision of whomsoever was walking down the streets of the slum that day. There was no question she could _find_ some runner or fence or seller to terrorize; so all that was left to decide was whether to merely _spy_ to gain additional information, steal his merchandise to _destroy_ it, or wait till he'd made his rounds for his day and then simply nick the cash. If she nicked the cash, she could buy a puppy! Decisions, decisions, decisions. Maybe she'd wait to see whatever struck her fancy in the moment—Holy Bajebus.

" _Ohayō gozaimasu_ , Kinpōge-kun"

Floored, 'Kinpōge' dumbly turned herself about and looked up to find a heavily camouflaged turtle _sitting right there_ above her upon the stairwell access roof, calmly streaking gray makeup across his face. She raised her hands to emphasize her mind-blown question: " _How_?"

Her sensei kept applying streaks of gray. "Your father is a bartender and works during the evenings and on weekends. Ergo if you were to try and 'slip out' while he was sleeping, you would need to do so during the day. Assuming his shift starts sometime around dinner, and that he sleeps _prior_ to work like most people with a stable circadian rhythm, you would sneak out at approximately ten or eleven in the morning."

"But... But...!" she complained, at a total loss.

"Also, I could not sleep."

"You're not supposed to be the smart one!" she accused.

"Do you believe a mind as rational as Donatello's could have anticipated the convolutions inherent to asking me for _help_ , but then intentionally misleading me as to the time in which you would need it? I _suspect_ you did not even have malicious or manipulative intent; That is, you did not intentionally set _me_ up for failure, so much as you set _yourself_ up for false hope of an intervention, and undermined it in the same breath. Very peculiar."

Wildcard blinked quietly a long moment. Then she climbed up on an air conditioner, and grasped the lip of the stairwell roof, and pulled herself up to sit beside her sensei. She kicked her legs and was silent for a bit. "So, uh, why couldn't you sleep?" she finally asked.

"Perhaps Raphael snores." Her sensei turned to tuck the jar of gray makeup away on his person. "Perhaps I merely enjoy sunning myself when the excuse strikes."

"I... guess I'll go to the Recreation Center, then," she sighed melodramatically.

"You may do as you please. You have no appointments with anyone, and are not running late to any destination."

Still he didn't move. She frowned nervously. "Well if you're not trying to make sure I don't bolt the second you're under a manhole cover, aren't you risking being seen? It's not safe up here, what if something happens to you? You should get underground."

"Says who?" Leo inquired languidly as he eased himself from a seat into a squat. "On occasion I have been known to _prowl_ about in the daylight hours, to inspect all the things the criminal underbelly believes me blind to while our family slumbers." He turned and walked to the edge of the roof, and she blinked and rolled over to hop up after him. He dropped to the rest of the roof, and she followed (with less than half his grace).

"But, wait, you're going on patrol? _Now_?" A ninja had clearly mistaken himself for a lion.

"Yes. Do you wish to tail me? If so, you will become my responsibility and must comply with my every instruction. At times you will be forced to sit still for long stretches of time, and I rarely intervene unless lives are at stake."

"So no pouncing lessons?" she asked, but then figured it would go over his head; this wasn't Mikey. "If they see me with you..."

"Then it shall be my fault for being seen _at all_. But you could use the practice in going unseen by daylight." He reached the edge of the roof and casually slipped over the concrete wall and down onto the decorative molding of a dusty old window frame. "Do watch out for stampedes," he added.

Holy smokes, they were on the same joke. Leo ~ Lion ~ Prowl. "Yeah, well, don't fall in any gorges," she blurted as she swung herself down after him. Whoops! He was much taller, and his hand and foot-holds were going to be much different than hers.

Leo glanced at her and seemed to know she'd wobbled a bit. "I hope I need not rescue any cubs from wildebeests."

"Yeah but the _second_ time, Mufasa was thrown back in to the gorge by his envious younger brother with green eyes, who craved his respect and position in the family!" she countered as she found her own way down a drainage pipe.

"Nice try, but Raphael has golden eyes."

"Doh! Nickelodeon, _you had one job..._ "

"Perhaps watch fewer cartoons, Kinpōge-kun, they rot the mind. Particularly super-heroic ones which vaguely resemble your neighbor's actual lives."

Kinpōge started humming _I Just Can't Wait to be King_ as she swung herself down to join him. Dun da da dun dun, da dun da dun~!

"You and Michelangelo have similar concepts of _stealth_ ," her sensei lamented.


	59. A Bit of Yang in Yin

_Saturday._ Wide awake and staring at the ceiling, Sandro listened to the house. To its drips, and sighs, and to the movements of the reptiles and the feeder mice.

The lair woke slowly up out of stillness and silence as the sun moved towards dusk, the time period which served as the turtles' morning. Leo was particularly quiet even as he opened and closed doors, but eventually a distant alarm woke Donatello, and then the bubbling of a coffee pot and hot water kettle would start warming up the home with sound.

Low voices murmured, and they were part of the sound too. But then they became more, churning and rumbling, slowly rising up far past the muffle of walls.

"Do you have _any_ concept of the damage you've done?"

Donnie's voice was higher-pitched than Raphael's, and carried better. Apparently the latter answered something like 'a busted leg and a cut plastron.'

"I mean _mentally,_ you neanderthal."

Sandro eyed his door and then grabbed his pillow out from under his head and slapped it down on top to cut out noise. It didn't work, entirely, but at least he couldn't make out any words. Back and forth the argument went, till Raphael's exasperation got loud enough to get through any possible amount of cotton and polyester.

" _–_ it ain't mah fault ya went on _sat_ on knowin all this shit, and didn't tell me somethin was up!"

Donnie's shrill retort was just as bad, which meant they'd already been laying into one another and things were getting heated: "You're blaming _me_ for how you _attacked_ Sandro!?"

"I ain't BLAMIN' no one but _me—_ Fuck off! I'm sayin if I'd at least known what was goin' on, I woulda understood him bettah! Woulda had some goddamn sympathy for why he flew off the handle at April! Ya left me clueless!" Sandro threw his pillow across the room, and then covered his face and tried to roll over but couldn't, because of the leg.

"'Flew off the Handle!?' You're telling me _you_ weren't spoiling for a fight to begin with!? _Trying_ to push him!? Have you ever considered it was no one's job but yours to build a relationship where your son feels comfortable talking to you _himself_!?"

"Yeah well that ain't where we're at, so thanks for rubbin it in my face! _You_ knew dat, and you knew dere was a problem, and you didn't say nothin to me or ta April!"

Sandro balled his hands into fists, clutching up the sheets.

"It — Doesn't — Matter. You slashed him across the belly of the plastron, Raphael. The only place without bone reinforcement! Don't think I missed that! Either you were absurdly careless or you were treating that like a _real fight_. Well guess what: You can't try to _kill him_ no matter how foul-mouthed he is, or how angry you get, and you _know_ that. It's no one's fault but yours that–"

"DON'T YA THINK I KNOW ITS MAH FAULT!?" (Sandro reached for anything, any available object. He got hold of his alarm clock.) "How 'bout some fucking _help_!? Do ya want ta see me fail—Huh!?—Is dat it!? So you can be the dad I dunno how ta be!?"

 _The alarm clock._ Sandro stared at it, as the second ticked by, his arms trembling, as every muscle in his body envisioned a _throw_. Yet all at once he became incredibly conscious of the sliky fabric wrapped about his head and it gave him pause. He lifted his hand to pull the bandanna-styled mask down, and thumbed the bit of white striped across the eye. _A bit of Yin in Yang._ _A bit of Yang in Yin._

('-this isn't about _you or me-'_ '-ahm askin ya ta-' '-give excuses to-' '-keepin _secrets_ -' '-control _yourself_ -' '-snooty b-' '- _ashamed_ -')

 _No._ Sandro slammed the clock safely back down onto his counter. _I want to fix things, not break them._ He pulled the bandanna back on, tightened the tails, and grabbed for the crutch Donatello had left him the day before, and pulled himself upright. Ow. Ow. Ow. Pain helped, balanced out the anger, but also kept it fuel. He hobbled heavily across the room, and shoved the door open. Voices faltered and fell to silence.

Sandro limped across the room and up to the kitchen, as both adults tried to figure out whether offering to help him would be kind or condescending. He passed between them under his own power (Ow), and found a bottle of Tylenol waiting for him. Perfect. He leaned his crutch against the counter, shook himself two tablets, and poured himself some water to drink as he swallowed them. Then he grabbed an apple and stuffed it in his mouth (since he was carrying water), and picked back up his crutch, and went to leave the kitchen.

"Hey... Sandro...?" Donnie only interjected when he saw Sandro had no intention of going back to his room and was most probably heading for the exercise room. "You should still be resting, if you can..."

Sandro paused, thought about this, leaned his elbow on the crutch, and took a bite of the apple. _What would Wild do?_ He glanced up at Raphael, whose attention was riveted on him. "Donnie's really more a _mom_ , actually," he mentioned, and then bit into his apple again, picked up his crutch again, and shuffled along with his head held high. Maybe Wild was right. Maybe sometimes absurd humor really was the only answer that wouldn't make things worse.

* * *

The most important thing Sandro managed to find that morning was his phone. He didn't even have to read Wild's texts to know she'd be asking him if he was dead, and he texted back 'yes, send doughnuts to be offered at shrine' before even glancing at what she'd written. Yup. It was 'Are you Dead?' He could seriously read his crazy sister's mind.

He sat himself down in the exercise room (gingerly), and took a few deep breaths to control the pain. Then he removed the old ice-packs, and investigated the state of the swelling. Well, it all hurt _a ton_ , and the bruising looked terrible around the edges of the bandages, but he was definitely alive. If it hadn't been at his hip and knee, _sitting_ wouldn't be so darn painful. He tried to lean over to tuck the ice packs into the freezer compartment of the little mini fridge in the exercise room, but even rolling onto his good butt-cheek to try and do so put _way_ too much strain on the bad hip. Flustered, he stacked the ice packs next to the fridge instead. Good enough.

Still, his mood floundered a bit, but he started stretching very carefully. The arms and neck were easy, but trying to exercise the good leg or torso kept sending pangs through the hurt leg. He finished off that apple, drank some water, and then wrapped his hands as he tried to figure out what exercises he could do. Anything with short resistance bands, probably.

He heard the whisper of heavy footsteps. "Hey, uh..." his father stepped into the exercise room. "Ya _do_ need ta take it easy."

"Sure," Sandro said, more to acknowledge that the older turtle had spoken than in agreement. If anything, this just made him that more eager to _do something_ instead of sitting in bed all day like some cripple. He pushed himself to his feet without wincing, even though it sent waves of pain up from his hip, and he leaned against the wall to gingerly hop his way over the chin-up bar.

" _Sandro_ ," Raphael said, and Sandro's skin prickled. "I'm serious, I know from experience how shitty it is ta be laid up with a busted–"

"Then maybe don't be hypocritical?" Sandro interrupted, in no mood to be restrained. "Cause it seems to me that's what everyone else does: They tell me they've been in my shoes and understand, but then they won't let me do whatever _they_ did. Apparently 'having money' changes kids' life experiences so much it turns 'em into saints; all of them but–"

Hands touched his shell and shoulder, turning him around to face a red bandanna and bright golden eyes. "Put ya soap box away for just three seconds," his father said, "so I can ask ta _spot_ for ya, a'right?"

Oh. Well. That was fair. Getting up and down from the pull-up bar would be pretty hard without help.

Sandro looked at his feet, a little embarrassed and still frustrated with everything that had happened. He nodded. His father touched his head (affectionately?), and gave him his crutch back without a word, because (as Sandro had just learned) it was a lot easier to walk on a crutch than it was to hop about with one's hand on a wall. Raphael let him make his own way to the bar, and only touched him again to boost him up to it. He did stay pretty close in case Sandro slipped, which made Sandro feel fragile (and more than a little annoyed), but it wasn't terrible.

Guess Dad knew from experience how irritating it was to be fawned over or nagged when you were sick or hurt or angry.

"Ya won't have the same energy as normal," Raphael mentioned. "So just admit it whenevah ya ready ta come down, or I'll be catchin' ya and then you'll be even more pissed for fallin in fronta me."

That seemed like pretty sound advice. Sandro heaved himself up for the first pull-up, and could definitely already feel the burn. Still, he was determined to get _some_ exercise in, and this felt like the only thing he could do which didn't involve his lower body in some way.

Apparently dad could read his mind. "Ya wanna give free weights a try afta a bit?"

"I thought," Sandro pulled himself up again, "I'm too young," he eased himself down, "for weightlifting." Up again.

"Yeah, well, since ya was speaking of hypocritical advice..." Sandro glanced at him, and Raphael decided to continue: "I was shorter than you are when Donnie n' I lugged that bench press down here, and it didn't exactly stunt mah growth. Got more in trouble for visitin the dump unsupervised than anythin."

Sandro bunched his elbows up atop the chin-up bar to rest there for a bit, and peered down at his father. "It's _that_ old?"

"Yeah. Good shape, ain't it? Always figured somebody was cleanin out a house n' didn't know what ta do with it, and it hadn't been through a rain yet so it didn't rust or mold. Don, bein Don, went and scoured that dump for fitness mags ta give me so I didn't," he did air quotes, "hurt mahself."

"Did you actually read them?"

"Sure. Why not? Had good tips, and pictures of hot chicks playing volleyball. Explained protein, hydration, nutrition, and sh- uh, _stuff_. What's not ta like?"

"I honestly can't imagine you _reading_ ," Sandro admitted, though in truth he was more than a little surprised his father would revisit a clearly plesant memory involving _Donatello_ right now.

Raphael shuttered his eyes at him and put his hands on his hips. "I read more _languages_ than you do, kid. Might surprise ya ta learn it takes a hell of a lot of reading engineerin manuals ta put motorcycles together? Less ta figuah out optimal workout routines." He sniffed, and glanced down. "And ya mom's a suckah for poetry."

"You read mom _poetry_?"

"No, Shaddap. I put it on her birthday n' aniversary cards and shi– _stuff_."

Sandro burst out in snickers and giggles atop the chin-up bar, and felt _innocently happy_ in that one moment. His father glanced up at him almost as if bashful, and smirked, and the expression reminded Sandro of the proud way Raphael had grinned at him on his birthday. Even though he still resented his father for many things, he had the impression something might have gotten better between them, instead of worse. _Maybe_. If it stuck.

He dared to hope it might.

* * *

"And where have _you_ been?" A pre-caffeinated Donatello lashed out. He hadn't meant to hiss, exactly, but when Leonardo's bedroom door had opened that morning, Donnie had naturally expected _Leonardo_ to be waking up, and instead, he'd been confronted with Raphael's awkward 'Good Morning' long before any coffee was available. So that was somehow Leo's fault. Which didn't make any sense. Was the coffee ready _yet_? These were the times and places he _really_ needed an espresso machine. _If Raphael hurts or so much as even *yells* at Sandro again, I swear–_

Leonardo, who was barely inside the front door yet, calmly lifted a heel and removed the shoe. "I was on patrol."

"During the _day_?!" Donatello spun about. "Without any warning!? Why!? What if something had happened!? Why did you deviate from your normal schedule without telling anyone!? Wh-what-!"

Leo stood and strode bare-footed across the lair. He came up to a startled Donatello, who had not seen Leo fail to rinse his shoes or don indoor tabi in years, and—stranger and stranger!—settled a hand firmly on each of Donnie's shoulders. "Calm down," he said authoritatively.

"Calm down!?" Donatello gaped.

"We are all upset," Leo told him, "and it is completely right and natural that you should be more upset than anyone but Sandro himself. Yet you also sound as if your nerves are threadbare, or as if you are spoiling for a fight, and that will skew your good judgement. Have you had any time to personally reassure Sandro since the incident yesterday?" He hadn't. April had. "Perhaps you should take some later. For now, assuming there is nothing on the stove that needs tending, I can spar with you in the dojo. It could help relieve some of your very understandable need to shred Raphael."

Donatello's eyes were round. He stared at his brother in wondrous disbelief for a moment. "I'm... I'm sort of watching the surveillance cameras," he muttered distractedly.

Leo glanced over and saw that Donatello meant he was keeping tabs on Raphael. "Let's wake up Michelangelo for that job, seeing as he can even go into the room without either of them really feeling 'under surveillance.' Might even cheer them up."

Taking charge. Leo was _taking charge_ of something other than a combat situation or strategic placement of resources. Donatello stared at him like Blue Turtle had sprouted six extra heads, and then nodded dumbly. Leo patted his shoulder and stepped around him to go find their youngest brother and make his way to the dojo. "Um, _where_ were you, again?" Donatello queried dazedly as he turned around.

Leo paused as if to take full survey of where all his family members were. "Tuckering out an anxious wild child," he explained, and then looked back to Donatello. "It was something like babysitting a hyperactive four-year-old. A hyperactive four-year-old armed with a large variety of shivs, and a psychopathic desire to pounce ne'er-do-wells which rivals Casey Jones' own, all whilst quietly humming tunes from Disney's _The Lion King_. Off-key."

Donatello blinked once, then twice. "And you're actually training this girl? ...For what continues to be no specified reason whatsoever? At a whim?"

Leonardo smirked, a _smug_ expression which crept all the way up to the blue of his eyes. Without answering, he turned and continued on his way.

* * *

"Alright," Raphael explained after making sure Sandro took a good long break and drank plenty of water. "How's ya leg, by the way?"

"Sitting, laying down, walking," Sandro answered, "all kinda a pain in the tail. The Tylenol helps."

"Yo I think a cushion could help," Michelangelo reasoned, and bounced out to get one. Raphael switched out the old ice packs for new ones. Neither of them treated Sandro like a glass vase; they just helped him. The cushion really did help.

"Alright, ya gonna start with these using just a regular curl, low weight high rep," Raphael explained. "And nevah set em down on the bench beside ya, especially with knucklehead here in the room." He shoved harmlessly at Mikey, who snickered. "Cause they roll, and even five pounds ain't plesant when it's fallen on ya dam-uh, on ya foot."

"What's the difference?" Sandro queried as he took the first dumbbell and practiced with it as his father showed him. "I mean, what's 'high weight and low rep?'"

"High rep's for a fight," Raphael explained as he saw Sandro had the hang of things, and walked around the bench to pick up much larger weights from the rack. "High weight's for when ya gotta lift a car off someone." He came back over to sit. "One's endurance, one's strength."

"Does one make you bulk up more than the other?" Sandro queried.

"Why ya askin?" asked the man with thirty-inch biceps.

"Was just thinking I kinda like still being 'human-sized.' Wouldn't particularly mind if I didn't get any taller, either."

Both older turtles looked at him, not as if he had said anything strange, but as if they both sort of sympathized. "Well, hate ta break it to ya, but you're already _taller_ than we were at your age. Donnie says not ta read too far inta that, but truth is: You're a turtle," his father said. "The package deal comes with some nice perks, and some not so nice ones. Nice perk: Ability to fight like humans can't. Downside: Being big ugly green ogres. However tall ya get best ya can do is get used to it."

Michelangelo gasped and clutched his heart. "You take that back, I am _not ugly!_ I'm _beautiful,_ Leo said so and I'm ninety percent certain Leo can't lie!" Raphael rolled his eyes and smirked, giving Mikey another companionable shove, and Mikey laughed and tried to tickle him, and Raphael grabbed him by the shell and held up that dumbbell like he was ready to punch him with it. Mikey lifted his hands placatingly. Raph laughed, and let go.

Sandro furrowed his brow up at both of them. _'Sandro, you and your whole family are breathtakingly good-looking, muscular, and tall. Shame on you, don't undermine yourself that way.'_ Hmm. Sandro looked back down to his weight. "Someone should tell mom that."

"What's that?" Raphael asked more patiently than usual at a mention of 'mom.' That seemed to be a green light to continue, so Sandro did so cautiously.

"Well, even when I was getting in trouble for going topside, mom turned it into a lecture about how I ought to be thinking about professions I could have instead of wanting to fight criminals."

"And?"

"I think..." _Ho boy,_ how had Wild put it when they were reviewing that security footage? Sandro ought to have this; _Don't get nervous._ "Well, the way Mom talks about me practicing Ninjitsu makes me feel like she definitely sees it as a _extracurricular hobby,_ and genuinely expects me to de-prioritize it and somehow go to college like uncle Donatello did. And, um, not that I'm dumb or anything, but I think that's kinda delusional of her. Okay, not 'delusional,' just _mistaken._ I am a turtle, so wrangling a degree out of the US educational system would only make sense if had any passions, like Donatello does for science. And I don't. In fact, since the only thing I care about is Ninjitsu, she's kinda turning her nose down on all my accomplishments in it instead of, ya know, being proud or somethin."

"Yeah, that's... I been meanin ta talk ta ya ma about that," Raphael admitted. "Probably shoulda talked ta her about it that night, but wasn't sure how ta put it to words just yet."

Sandro looked up immediately, eyes wide. Dad was on _his side?_

"Hey, ya still gotta finish ya general education, don't get me wrong. Sensei—ya Grandfather—he educated us as best he could, and Donnie and April are doin somethin similar for you, just more standardized. Ya get that?" Sandro bobbed his head. "Yeah. But at the end of the day, we're all still mutant ninja turtles livin in a sewers and the rules and expectations of mainstream society don't exactly apply."

"And only _some_ of us make particularly good employees," Mikey snickered. "Can you imagine Raphie on customer service?"

"Mikey, do not append an '-ie' to mah name. Anyway, Mike's right, the rest of us are busy keeping the world from fallin' apart. I ain't proud of ya mom for almost tryin ta make ya feel _ashamed_ of being a ninja, or somethin. Or actin like lackin for another profession is some kind of _freeloadin_. Ya uncle Leo and I work _hard,_ and just cause we don't get paid for it don't mean it's not important."

"Then... y _ou're_ gonna talk to her?" Sandro asked. Not that he knew whether Raphael could _win_ that conversation, but at least his dad wasn't set to support her no matter what.

"Yeah, Ah'll talk to her," Raphael nodded. " _But,_ at the same time, ya should know money's a real thing, and na take it for granted how hard she and Donnie work ta help pay for things like food, motorcycles, lab equipment, Japanese rugs, and hand-forged kama. Seriously. This place was ugly, leaky, smelly, and dirty as... well as a sewer—before ya mom started being able to bring in cash. How else da ya think ya managed to find a _crocodile_ all on your own, eh?"

"I think I'm starting to understand that better, too." Sandro smiled. "Thanks."

"Man, those were the days! There was so much mold inside that first couch when we pitched it, yo!" Mikey cackled. "Donnie turned even more green and _swooned_ at the sight!"

"Na that _that's_ sayin much, it _is_ Donatello we're talkin about."

"Be _nice_ , Raphie," Mikey scolded.

"Okay, that's it! Headlock time–"

"–no! Uncle! Owww! Raphaeeeell-senpaaai! No ie! No ie! I give up!"

"Maybe this is for 'the O'Neilmobile,' ya evah think of that?"

"Okay that one I'm totally not sorry for- owww! Sandro, hurry, tickle him! His sweet spot's under the knee!"

" _What!?_ Oh you _little_ -!"

* * *

Donatello and April were sharing their first coffee of the day when Mikey bolted out of the exercise room with a high-pitched squeal of delight and Raphael dead on his heels. The two bolted around the kitchen, crashing into and overturning furniture, and made it out into the atrium and living room of the house, with crashes and bangs and dislodged household objects.

They hadn't seen Raphael and Mikey get into a serious game of 'tag' in years.

"Really?" Donatello asked, more in dismay than in disapproval, as April blinked vacantly through a pre-caffine and pre-workout fog of zero fucks to give. "Should you really be trying to kill Mikey at this delicate crossroads in all of our family relationships?"

Mikey managed a wall-run, flipping himself on top of the refrigerator and then up far too high for his heavier brother to reach. Raphael crashed into the wall, and then growled up at his much lighter and more nimble brother. "Oh, Ahm na tryin ta _kill_ him. I'm just afta his _feet._ "

"His _feet_?"

"I started a tickle fight!" Mikey cooed delightedly from the duct work, piping, and rafters as he kicked his legs like a schoolgirl. "And I played dirty! Sandro had him by the leg for like a solid _minute_ and he couldn't kick free, cause of that guilty conscious! It was _fantastic!_ "

"Oh, well then never mind," Donatello slurped his coffee. "Proceed."

Mikey gasped in alarm, and Raphael grinned up at him broad enough to reveal all his teeth and then got a chair to boost himself up onto the refrigerator. "Donnie! DONNIE!" Mikey squealed as he backed along the rafters. "Retract your approval! Retract your approvalll!"

"Are you going to clean our bedroom and scrub all the old stains off the ceiling from when you were playing hacky sack with that pizza slice, and clean up all the damaged and/or overturned object this just left across our household?"

"Yes!" Mikey shouted as a large red tiger slowly got up into the rafters with him. "Whatever you say!"

"And you'll be cleaning my van," April slurped her coffee. "Without adding or misplacing anything."

"But-!"

"He's _my_ husband," April shrugged noncommittally and with her hair still in a wild disarray courtesy of bedhead. "Between me and Donatello, whose disapproval do you think will actually get him out of the rafters?"

"Nice hustle, honey," a Red Turtle purred through that wide grin. "Now someone toss me a feather duster."

"Leeeoooo!" Mikey howled, pressed against the wall. "Savveee meee!"

"Did someone ask for a feather duster?" a groggy Leo leaned in his doorway, clearly dressed down to nap for a few hours. "Because after all this shouting, I'm about ready to give them one."

Sandro hobbled up alongside Donnie to see. "Sorry Uncle Mike, I tried! His hatred of 'The O'Neilmobile' was too strong!"

"S'cool, Lil Bro, was totally worth it! Eek, No!" He leaped—and was caught— _by the foot._ "Oh no. No! NO! Let-let g-! AEEEIII! WAHAHAHA AEEEIII! HAHAHAH! NUUUU!"

"Hey honey," April turned to fuss over him despite her groggy state. "How are you feeling? You okay? Were you hanging out with _your father?_ Did someone give you some more Tylenol? Have you eaten anything? You're drinking enough water, right? What's wrong? Are you upset?"

"Mom, I'm fine, it's just-" Sandro frowned and then heaved a great exasperated sigh as mom felt his temperature, "Well _clearly_ we're all in desperate need someone who can make a pun about punishing 'the Foot,' right now" he lamented, "but I feel terribly unqualified, and Mikey's _busy_."

April blinked at him, and then slapped a hand over her mouth, but a guffaw leaked out. Sandro's face lit up. He'd made her laugh!


	60. Angry Beast'

Sandro didn't need a spotter for light free weights. After wolfing down a larger serving of breakfast, and while Raphael and Michelangelo both ended up cleaning 'The O'Neilmobile' for taskmaster April, he hobbled his way back into the exercise room to do a few sets as he'd been instructed. There was something about the repetitive motions he found calming, and he already had a cushion prepared for his aching tail.

"Aha. Well, I would not be so insulting or inconsiderate as to compare you to your father this fine evening, but something did tell me I'd similar find you back in _here._ So instead I shall commend your work ethic, which you have clearly inherited from all of us but Michelangelo." Donatello was filled with sass this morning! How had that happened?

Sandro looked up at his uncle's approach and smiled at how calm he looked and sounded. Purple Turtle had looked like he'd been writhing in his own skin when Sandro'd walked in on his argument with Raphael, but now all that negative energy look to have been drained. "Poor Mikey. He'll be _devastated_."

"You seem up-beat this morning, littlest turtle," Donatello remarked, coming up to sit on the bench before him. His brows furrowed gently as he inquired, "Should I expect a crash later?"

Sandro's smile faltered. He looked solemnly to his weights. "I don't actually know. I was hair-trigger angry when I woke up, but somehow it just faded."

"Well, crash or no crash, we're here for you. You are under no obligations to feel anything just because other people are in hysterics." He singled himself out guiltily. "For example. And I'm sorry you woke up to us arguing; I know that's not what you wanted."

Sandro's gaze lifted warmly back to him. "It's okay. Somebody's gotta be the bad cop. And he—" Sandro breathed deep, "–he really kicked the _shit_ out of me, didn't he?"

"He did," Donatello agreed solemnly. "And it was unarguably wrong of him."

Lifting weights gave him something to pace his thoughts by.

Donatello didn't press the point. "I had a question for you. I took something 'obvious' for granted yesterday, and it just occurred to me I should actually ask you your opinion first. My assumption was that we would postpone talking to your mother until you had recovered, physically _and_ emotionally. Is that what you want? Or would you, for whatever reason, still like to try talking to her today or tomorrow?"

Curl, release, curl, release. Sandro changed the grip, exercising different muscles as instructed. "Can I think about it?" he finally asked.

"Sure... but, Sandro, there's no shame in having decisions made for you when a situation's exhausting. That's normal; _most_ people need that. Only certain people, natural born leaders, train to make good decisions in times of high stress. It's okay to rely on me if you need to, and I suspect yesterday took a heavier toll than you even realize just yet."

"Thanks," Sandro acknowledged. "I get that, but right now I'm not stressed by _choices_. I'll be happier knowing I get to pick, as long as I know I don't have to pick right this second."

Donatello sat back and then nodded. "You really are good at articulating yourself," he complimented. "It's not Wildcard's imagination, and I don't know why I never noticed before. Maybe you just needed some space to grow in, and running topside helped increase your sense of free agency. Do you mind if I buy you a book on psychology? It may help contribute tools, new ways to describe things."

"Actually," Sandro paused. "Right now... could you just please touch me?"

Brown eyes blinked at him in surprise at the request.

"It's.. It's just that both of _them_ have hugged me, but it almost doesn't mean the same thing, somehow. Cause it was like I was half mad at them _for_ hugging me, and half needed them to do it, so it was just exhausting. And particularly when mom does it, maybe I'm crazy, but it always feels like she's reading from some Mom's For Dummies playbook, or off a teleprompter." He lifted a hand to wipe at his face. "Like even when she came in to check up on me, it just felt like she did it cause that's what a mom ought to do, like I couldn't feel any of it. And that she was completely oblivious to how that job had been done a hundred times while she wasn't there, so she was basically this awkward substitute, because the person who's supposed to check up on me if I'm injured or sick _is you._ "

* * *

Donatello had lifted his hands midair and was staring at him wide-eyed with brows furrowed upwards in sorrow. As Sandro finished speaking, he reached forward, touching his face, cupping his cheeks, and running thumbs gently over his cheeks and brows. Donnie pet hands over his head, touched his shell, and then switched seats to come closer and pulled him carefully into a hug and cradle him slightly.

Sandro leaned heavily into him, weights forgotten. Donnie gave him a long moment to calm down in.

"You know," his uncle began began, "I've only taken care of you as much as your mother has. For the first entire half of your life, April was a student, a working mom, _and_ still found time to take care of you. She barely slept. She ran on caffeine more than I ever did, and it's a real wonder she never burnt out. She didn't miss _anything_ , Sandro. Your first words, your first steps, your first successful poopy in the toilet—she was there for _all_ of it. Mikey and I had to work hard to bring in table scraps to support you. I wasn't always there; _she was._ I realize those are years you don't remember, which might as well have been as far away and mythological as the dawn of time. But your mother remembers them like they were yesterday. Doing all the grunt-work of motherhood, and having a strong connection to her baby boy... She has many, many, _many_ memories of providing for you."

Sandro looked up at him hesitantly, because this had _never_ occurred to him before.

Donatello smiled. "It's not—not by any means—too late for you and your mother to build a strong relationship again. Your mother loves you. She's not up-to-date on how to show it, and she's never learned how to communicate with you as anything other than a child. But she doesn't realize that, and she wouldn't want it to be that way if she _did_ know. She'd want to know you for you."

Sandro snorted and looked down. "Yeah well, telling her her that is like calling her out for child neglect," he said. "She won't believe it, no one will even say it, and even if they did, no one wants to fight to make her believe it. So how's she going to know to change?"

"I...I was thinking slow, gentle hints to spend more time with you and open her mind to the idea that you have your own identity now might work better."

Sandro was skeptical, but skepticism wasn't what came out of his mouth: "What if I'm angry with her and _want_ her to know she fucked up and has to fix it? What if I want an apology? She makes me feel like I'm insane. I feel horrible I could resent and repeatedly rebel against someone who's so 'nice' but who routinely tries to control things like what I _eat_ or listen to on internet radio, or games I play."

"Well, ah..." Donatello was clearly uncomfortable talking this way about April. "Do you wish to sacrifice the certainty of mending things for _revenge?_ "

"Mending what, exactly? Enough to matter? And isn't 'revenge' what you want from my dad? Don't you want him to _suffer_? To blow up on you and prove you right? So you can just _unload_ on him about everything he's done wrong for years? Is that such an incredibly bad thing to want, to _vent_ on someone for things they've actually done?"

Donatello was silent in the wake of that. Then he took a deep breath, and let it out through his news. "You know, I think I have finally found a job for your uncle Leonardo. He's been waiting to hear how he can help with your situation. He can help you through this part."

"By lecturing me about inner serenity?" Sandro muttered.

"By being able to deliver uncomfortable truths straight to people's faces, without softening the blow _or_ going overboard. He knew _exactly_ what was wrong between you and April without being told, Sandro, saying many of the things to me which you just said. He even referred to me as the most stable 'maternal influence' in your life."

" _Leo_ said that?" It seemed unlikely Leonardo the super-proper Japanophile would dare mix gendered nouns in a conventionally improper fashion but, hey, he'd come up with, "Kinpōge-kun," so what did Sandro know?

"Leo said exactly that," Donnie tapped his nose. "Maybe Leo can't fight Raphael very well anymore, but I can. And I clearly can't criticize April very well, but Leo can. We will play to our strengths."

Sandro nodded, and then smiled contentedly. "Sorry for calling you a girl, though. I felt like... that way, nobody could be jealous."

" _I_ wasn't– Mn. You've certainly figured how to appease someone's masculinity at mine's expense, but I think I'll forgive you seeing as he taunts us with or without your coercion," Donnie teased, affectionately scratching his shell and rubbing the back of his neck and scalp. Sandro hugged into him, feeling younger than he was, but enjoying it. "Oh, Sandro..." Donnie sighed, leaning into the wall with him. "I honestly have never been so angry in my life as I was _enraged_ at seeing what he'd done to you. I saw _red_."

"That was super ballsy," Sandro mentioned into his uncle's collar. "I thought someone would have to be insane to try and _wrestle_ him away."

"I would of torn his head off if he hadn't been my brother. I _swear_ I had it in me to," Donatello huffed, leaning a cheek into the top of his head. " I'm sorry, I shouldn't be saying that to you."

"S'okay. I get it. I wanted to tackle him so he couldn't hit _you_."

Donnie laughed. "I've had more than one black eye courtesy of Raphael over my life, yes, but he's had plenty of mishaps courtesy of me. When he got mad, Mikey used to joke 'oh no, you've awoken the beast,' but he'll also tell you I can deal mean and cold when I want to. Still, I'm Raph's own age and grew up with him, and he... he should not have _ever_ hit you with live steel. He's rarely made a mistake that bad in all his life. Perhaps in the heat of the moment, you strongly resembled a lot of people he's used to being able to brawl at full strength with, and his intuition failed him."

"He didn't have anything in him that said to reign it back in for _me_." Sandro's breath caught. "Like I wasn't special or important to him at all." He wiped his face with his sleeve.

"Oh no, you _are_. He made a mistake," Donnie promised at his temple, and gently wicked tears from his face. "A very, very terrible mistake, yes, but your father would rather be gutted by a handsaw than let anything happen to you. So... he _knows_ how badly he's screwed up," which Donnie hated to admit, but did so for Sandro's sake, "and how much penance he has to pay to make this better. He's usually _overprotective_ of you. Even when meeting new people, your father is always the first person to get his shell between the rest of us and any potential danger. It seems you have that in you, too. In fact you have many of his best attributes. His ardence. His loyalty. His fierceness. His ability to act quickly. His knack for fiddling with mechanical objects, even."

"His _temper_ ," Sandro muttered.

"Not that bad." Donnie tapped his snout. "Your actual mom _thrashed_ him, by the way. Like a lady tiger protecting her cub. It was terrifying"

"Guess I could see that." But he didn't want to talk about it much. "I love you," he told his uncle in much too small a voice.

Donatello breathed in deeply, hugging him more tightly. "I love you, too." He 'kissed' the crown of Sandro head. "I'll let you exercise for a little longer, but then you need to take a nap. Kay?"

"If you carry me," Sandro might as well have been wagging his tail in contentment, if only turtles actually wagged their tails, "I'll nap now."

"What? Excuse me, _how_ old are you, young man?"

"Fourteen?"

"... Well... that's... actually a much better deal than any an injured Raphael has ever given me, so... Come here, let's see how to pick up that hurt leg of yours without bumping it."

* * *

Sandro ended up sleeping a lot longer than 'a nap.' He woke up dazedly sometime around dinner, and was helped out to eat dinner, take some more acetaminophen, and drink water. Then his relatives steered him back to the safety of his bed, and he collapsed again and was asleep nearly as he hit his pillow.

And then it was Sunday. _Sunday._ His parents would be leaving as the day drew to a close, back to work and a world in which Sandro didn't exist. He'd slept through hours and hours of time he could have been spending with them. Having them around was _temporary_ , and so was all the additional attention they wanted to give him. Who knew what mood any of them would be in next week? Up. Get _up!_ Stop laying in bed thinking about it, and _get up_!

Sandro struggled out of bed, _hours_ late for breakfast. He stubbornly ignored the strong likelihood that his leg was hurting him more than it had yesterday, because that suggested he'd 'overdone' it, which was unacceptable when he needed to do ten times as much today to make up for falling asleep shortly after their midnight 'noon.'

Some breakfast had been saved for him and kept warm with aluminum foil, and Mom and Donatello were in the kitchen when he woke up so they served him. They must have been able to see some measurable change in his limp, because he hadn't even sat himself down yet and they (mostly mom) were bombarding him with suggests he rest. Donatello's suggestion that he take it easy on the couch that day and play some games was by no means terrible, because not only would multiple people likely stop in to play with him, but Mom even offered to watch a movie with him, which meant she'd spend time with him, _which was exactly what he wanted_!

But somehow it drove him crazy to have them hovering, and those suggestions weren't what Sandro had started off determined to do, and in the end he just lashed out with an angry shout of, "I'm FINE!" which he immediately wanted to recant, but couldn't.

Donatello didn't look hurt, though. Mom looked a little shocked, but Donnie just patted his shoulder in understanding and went to get him some Tylenol, and that was apparently enough to convince Mom the situation was fine and no issues needed to be pushed. Sandro didn't want to face either of them after yelling, though. He cleaned his plate of breakfast, picked himself up, and hobbled aggressively off to the weight room with his own mini thundercloud emoji surely animating atop his head. _Don't stop me, don't bother me, leave me alone!_

Being left alone was exactly the opposite of what Sandro had gotten up to do. Hormones sucked.

By the sounds, Raphael was boxing with the punching bag. Sandro didn't care and wasn't intimidated, and instead headed straight for the free weights.

"G'morning," his father called.

Sandro reached for the forty pound dumbbell.

"Whoa. Hey. _Sandro!_ "

Dad was coming closer and obviously trying to catch his attention, and Sandro whirled on him (and nearly fell over) with a roar of, "WHAT!?"

"Twenty pounds. Sit ya tail down, shut up and lift."

 _Sit down, shut up, lift. Okay, sounds fucking fantastic, actually._ Sandro acted out angry teenage rebellion by grabbing the _twenty-five_ pound weights, which was actually pretty pathetic as far as teenage rebellion went, because otherwise he did exactly as he'd been told. His father didn't comment, but slowly knelt before his bad leg. That was _tolerable_ , but then he started untethering the bandages.

Sandro stopped and glared. "I don't need-!"

" _Lift,_ " Raphael instructed. "After two days sleepin' and sweatin' in these, they need to be changed. Ya don't even have ta move, unless something hurts that shouldn't."

Sandro's knuckles squeezed tight around the dumbbell's leather grip, but he did go back to lifting it. Exercise had always been soothing for him and Wild both. Doing _something_ helped to get all the lightning out of her nerves and the geothermic tidal waves out of his. Raphael didn't talk to him, and Sandro sort of zoned out and ignored him. His father went to retrieve new dressings and compression wraps and other stuff, and Sandro ignored it all. He didn't even look at his own bruises.

"Other hand," was all Raphael said when it came time to unbandage his plastron and apply astringent, ointment, fresh gauze and cotton.

"I can lift a lot more than this," was Sandro's reply as he dutifully switched hands.

"'Xactly," Raphael agreed. "This way ya don't tire out the muscles and have ta take breaks where the stillness and irritation of bein' touched starts drivin ya off a cliff."

At that, Sandro finally looked at his father, because something really did feel _different_ (better) between them, and now it had lasted _days_. Raphael was focused entirely on changing the bandages and his head was bowed. His blood-red mask was marked with several white Japanese Kanji which, being shorter than Raphael, Sandro was seldom reminded existed. The one across the head was 憤, meaning 'anger,' and almost illegible upon the frayed tails was probably 獣. Sandro hesitated and then reached forward to grasp his father's bicep. That same 獣, meaning 'beast' was scarred into the scales there like a primitive tattoo, and Sandro had seen that more than the top of the mask.

Raphael glanced over at what had gotten his attention. "Oh. Fittin, ain't it?" he asked a bitterly, as if the irony wasn't lost on him.

Or as if it were _intended_. What made a person _cut_ 'beast' into their own skin? Pride? Or _shame_? Both kanji were probably terrifying intimidating messages for evil Japanese Ninjas to see on a nearly six hundred pound giant mutant ninja in an alleyway. But on a father, who was knelt bandaging up his own son after losing his temper, they took on a very different tone.

* * *

"I don't want–" he blurt. Raphael looked up at him, but Sandro grimaced, because he wasn't certain if he was allowed to say 'feelings' things without getting embarrassed for it. He looked down and leaned back a bit. "Are you only being nice to me cause I'm hurt? You're leaving. When you get back on Friday, does everything just go back to normal, like nothing's changed?"

"... Ya mom said somethin ta me which was spot on." Raphael finished bandaging him. "She said I was actin like I was tryin ta punish my temper for showin up in you. Like I felt it was mah fault for passin it on to someone else, and was determined to stamp it out. Instead of realizin the only person I was punishin was _you_ and you didn't deserve that. And what I shoulda been doin that whole time was help ya. That if I saw some of mahself in you, the point wasn't to _get rid of it_ , it was ta take care of it."

That was what was different between them, clumsily rendered in the awkward manner of someone who was uncomfortable expressing feelings verbally. Raphael _though_ of Sandro differently. Like a son, maybe, instead of a...

Sandro shook his head, frowning. "You called me a _mistake_."

" _When_?"

"Like just two weeks ago."

Raphael wrinkled his nose and was silent a moment. Then he scowled. "I said _I'd_ made a mistake. You were askin' me about why ya mom and I weren't around enough, and my answer was we hadn't planned it that way, it had been an _accident_."

"Same thing. Accident, mistake—"

"—I ain't calling _you_ the mistake!"

"Just the act of knocking up my mother. So: My conception."

"No, that-!" Raphael closed his beak and let out a breath through his nose. "Okay, I ain't the best storyteller but listen ta this: By any objective standard, it's _Grade A Bad Planning_ ta—at sixteen years old—knock up ya brother's lifelong crush when ya father's just been murdered, ya eldest brother's in a coma he might never wake up from, and you've been driven out of ya home and away from everything ya know by evil ninjas. Kay? Ya gonna give me that's true, at least?"

Sandro's eyes widened. _Holy chalupa._

"I mean," Red Turtle huffed, as if just thinking about this story were alarming him, "ya mom nearly miscarried ya _seven separate times_ , and went into labor weeks early in the middle of a fight ta the death. Which was bad—worse than it sounds—cause you were _fourteen pounds_. A baby's supposed ta be about _seven pounds._ Most of the extra weight was the shell, but anyone idiot with half a brain could figure it was _that shell,_ specifically the hard lip of it, that might get stuck on her insides coming out. She tried ta stay calm for us so we could focus, but Donnie nearly got killed freakin out on her behalf because his feels were still raw as _hell_ about the whole thing, and worst of all it was on the anniversary of our father's _death_ and we're all realizing we might lose her too. She needed a cesarean—ta be cut open and ta have ya removed surgically.

"Donnie _might_ have been able to bullshit his way through that operation under perfection conditions, if we were in his lab, but as it was he was badly injured and she'd bled and bled and bled from the inside through the whole damn fight, and we needed to get her to a hospital. But where? Where can bring a woman and tell the doctors, 'Hey, yo, we have no insurance of any kind, and no money, and by the way she needs to have a _baby turtle_ removed from her uterus.' At the very last second, friend of a friend told us to get to a hospital upriver funded by Xavier—The X-Men Old Bald Guy—where people like us could get medical treatment.

"She fell unconscious before we got there, and didn't wake up again even when they gave her blood, and you had to come out because the—I'm gonna stay this wrong—the am-mni-o-tic sac had completely drained and the placenta was detached, and you were gonna _die_ if they tried to stop the labor. And _I_ was the one who had to tell them she'd have wanted you ta live even if it killed her.

"So I got my one brother— _who still loves her at this point_ —in bandages and bawling hysterically behind me, I got another brother who's supposed to do the comic relief thing but is being quiet as a ghost, and I got Leo whose voice still hasn't come all the way back and sometimes coughs up blood when he tries to talk, and I'm waitin ta find out if my kid and girlfriend are gonna die _because I had sex with her_. It'd have been my fault, like I _killed ya both_.

"And even when both of you pulled through and lived, it no real relief, cause ya mom had fallen into a coma _._ We were terrified for her the way we'd been terrified for Leo, all over again, wonderin if she'd ever wake up. I don't think I slept for four days, and well thank ya Grandfather fer watchin over us that she finally did open her eyes at the end of the week. Meanwhile you were premature, which meant they had you in an incubator for a few days and nobody could touch you because they wanted ta make sure you didn't fall ill. We only got ta meet ya days after yous was born, when Donnie finally recovered enough to stomp in, proclaim you were healthy, and carry you in ta let ya cuddle with ya poor comatose ma, ta learn her smell and nurse off her a bit.

"And... Look, I realize in retrospect, maybe 'mistake' and 'accident' were bad words to use around ya and around questions like 'why did you guys even have a kid if ya didn't plan ta be around?' but can ya at least give me that I _didn't mean it like_ _that?_ I was blamin' myself that the 'plannin' part was so bad. Okay? San." Raphael grabbed his arms. "I can blame myself for stuff involvin ya, and not blame you for anythin. You know that, right?"

Sandro bobbed his head.

Raphael breathed in deep and let the air out hard as he sat back on his knees. "Sorry," he cleared his throat awkwardly. "Guess that was a bit much ta be heapin on ya, I just wanted ta... never mind, I'm sorry, I just–"

"No, it wasn't. It _wasn't._ Thank you," Sandro stopped him. "P-people don't tell me enough stories about the difficult stuff. And then I don't understand anything."

"Oh... uh... Well, maybe I know how that feels." He pat Sandro's good knee. The swelling's pretty bad, and I bet ya feel awful, but Donnie's healin' ointment's doin its job. The bruises would look worse than they do. Lemme, uh, get ya some more ice, if ya gonna be in here for a few hours." He got up, clearly a little embarrassed to have poured so much of _something_ of himself out into the open, and Sandro watched him as he walked over to the mini-fridge.

"I don't think you're a monster, Dad."

Raphael paused with a hand on the ice packs.

And then what came out of Sandro's mouth, complete with a fully-formed intention was: "Can I... um... can I talk to you about something important?" _Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh-_

"...Yeah," Raphael didn't respond to the 'not a monster' comment, just picking out the ice packs and coming back over him to sit beside him and apply the ice packs. "What did ya want to talk about?"

 _-shit ohh shit oh shit oh shit oh-_ "...Will ya promise not ta get mad?" Sandro needed to know.

Raphael winced. "Uh... Yeah kid, I promise. I won't get mad." He finished applying the ice packs. "So what's on ya mind?"

Sandro took in a deep breath. He looked down, and away, and anywhere but at his father. He put down his weight, and grasped his head and almost sat his elbows on his knees and leaned over before realizing how much that would hurt. _-shit oh shit oh-_ Then at last he breathed out in exasperation, and gave a slight toss of his hands and said:

"So there's this _girl_..."


	61. So There's This Girl

"So there's this _girl_..."

" _Holy_ cow," Raph burst, but then his son looked up at him in wide-eyed alarm, so he hurriedly joked, "Never thought I'd get to hear a sentence like that from my own kid. Okay. What girl, what are we talkin' bout?"

Sandro breathed out shakily. "The girl I met while sneakin topside."

 _He IS telling me! Holy mother of-_ Raphael had to repress the sudden, thrilled smile which nearly overtook his face. _Uh, quick, act natural!_ "Ya tellin me yous was _seen_ up there, and you ain't told nobody?" Yes. That was suitably rough.

"I know, I know! I failed at safe ninja-ing a lot that day!" Sandro gushed, looking away and folding his arms over his head. "But I figured she was just some slums kid, so I talked to her and... and that was probably the best decision I've ever made, ever. We must have talked about _nothing_ and _everything_ for four hours straight, and I came home and nearly giggled myself to sleep. I kept looking at my phone to make sure her number really was there."

 _He's so happy..._ Raphael glanced over at the phone in question, and then back to his son. "I take it that wasn't the end of things then."

"Well that's just it: she's my friend now. I-I started sneaking out every single weekday, and of course that how my uncles finally caught on I must have been going topside; I had to be up to something, right? The sewers aren't that exciting..."

"Yeah _I'll_ say. Where and when did ya meet this 'exciting kid?'"

"It was back in early May, she uh-"

 _Whoa now, that needs addressin'._ "You've been sneakin out—daily—to see some girl for nearly _half a year_?"

"She's my _friend_ , dad." Sandro was prayin he accepted that part. "You already knew I was going topside, cause I admitted that much! I just wasn't honest about _why_."

"No, 'parently not. Ya did mention a _fight_ , though, so naturally everyone assumed ya was stickin ya snout in trouble."

"That _is_ how I met her," Sandro admitted. "She'd run over to see what all the gunshots were all about, and ended up behind me and the Foot, and she threw knives at them. It was seriously brave; she could have been killed."

"Hold a second, are ya tellin me ya not only lost a fight, and ran away, but then ta cap it off got _rescued by a girl_?" He counted off the problems with this story on (all) three fingers.

Sandro's mouth flattened. "Yup."

Raphael raised a brow. "Er... Well, at least ya honest." _Was a ballsy girl to dive headlong in that kinda mess._ "How old is this kid?"

"Same as me. Except tiny," Sandro said, lifting up a hand to specify a height at or around five feet. "Tiny and loud. Anyway we never did anything stupid like that again, we stayed way within neutral territory, and I'll _swear_ to that."

"Hnh." Raphael crossed his arms and sat back to consider this (and to better hide how damn curious he was!). This friend of his was clearly trouble; But was it the good kind, or the bad kind? "Tell me what she's like, then," he prompted.

"Sorta crazy," Sandro gave a big, amused shrug. "But s'okay, I treat her like she's my little brother. Like..." He pulled off his mask, and offered it to Raphael, who took it in surprise. "She made this. She has the opposite bandanna, white with a black mark."

"It's a Yinyang?" Raphael realized as the significance of the white stripe dawned on him. _Ya wouldn't wear a mask all these years, and this girl gives ya a matchin' one, and suddenly ya change yer mind?_ He raised a brow at Sandro as he returned the mask. "Why are _you_ Yin?"

"It makes sense if you know her. She's loud, everything she does is big, she's all over the place, she's randomly getting in knife fights with gangs and/or people who want to steal her pizza. She's a maniac, who honestly needs supervision. It's a big job! Sometimes I have to pretend I'm Donnie or Leo. She can't be Yin. Yin's too quiet. I'm Yin, I live in the shadows, underground, in a sewer. I have to tell her 'Sorry Crazy Pants, we cannot steal the ice-cream truck; neither of us can drive, and you can't actually eat that much ice cream. Also it's illegal." He pulled the bandanna back on. "She's like sunshine explodes into whatever room she just ran into. That or farts or... maybe just actual dynamite, could be all three, no way to be sure."

Raphael draped his forearms over his knees to think, because _Holy Crap_ was that one hell of a description of a person, much less a kid who still had a lot of growing left to do. The tone or something else in the way Sandro had been talking had just... _changed._ It wasn't meek, sullen, obedient, childish, or recalcitrant. Raphael stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head and muttering the realization aloud: "Ya really care about this girl."

Sandro dropped his arms. "Yeah. Um. I don't think mom will like her, or much approve of her, but I made an agreement with Donnie I'd come clean to everybody, and I'm hoping she'll at least let me introduce her and _tentatively approve_ if she sees how much it means to me. Can you give me a week or so to explain it to her myself?"

Oh boy. Yeah, that was a task right there, and he couldn't really begrudge the kid the need for a breather. Raphael straightened thoughtfully and then nodded. "Yeah, kid, s'fine. S'long as it's just a week." Hmm. "So ya uncles know, eh?" He'd suspicioned as much. "That was nearly a month ago, back when you got caught. Ya ain't snuck out to see this girl since then? Not once?"

Sandro folded his hands. By his body language and how he didn't immediately reply, somethin was up. "Mikey convinced Donnie to let her visit."

"Visit?" Raphael's eyes widened. " _Here_? Donatello let some stranger down _here_ and didn't tell me and ya mom? Without our approval, without tellin' us anything was wrong or anything was up?!"

Sandro sawed his beak together nervously, and Raphael narrowed his eyes.

"More than _once_?" Raphael already could tell.

"They were just trying to help me! At least it's _safe_ down here. And it was Mikey's idea, not Donnie–"

"Yeah well nobody expects _Mikey_ to make smart decisions in their absence, which is why they leave _Donatello_ in charge. Cuttin ya actual parents outta the loop ain't right! He oughta of explained the whole situation to us _himself_ , and instead he acted like he'd already had our approval? As if everything was already decided!" Raphael shook his head and made to stand, because he'd had a feeling something like this had been goin wrong since he'd met that bartender. "I need ta have a talk with dat turtle."

"I was afraid I'd never see her again!" Sandro grabbed at his arm, his voice unexpectedly raw. "What if mom didn't like her, and everyone panicked about safety, and I lost my little brother and the only friend I've ever had in the world aside from my _pets_!? I was lonely, and I was _scared_! I _needed_ to see her! I needed to believe things might be okay!

Raphael sat down with a heavy thud upon the bench, and didn't look at the boy for a moment. He took in a breath through the nose and let it out through his beak, and thought about what it would have felt like to be denied April or Casey's friendship over technicalities. Raphael tilted his head back. "What's Donnie say about this kid? Anything suspicious?"

"He... W-well he calls her 'She-Casey,' which should tell you how much he appreciates her lovely personality." Sandro slowly settled down. "But he cleared her of gang ties if that's w-what you're asking. M-mikey's nickname for her is 'Mini-Meme' and he's pretty much completely in love with her."

Raphael rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head, still watching the ceiling. "They already have _nicknames_ for this kid, and we ain't been told a thing."

"But I'm telling you right _now._ I woulda done it earlier but didn't want to ruin my birthday." _Okay, fair_. "Will-will you at least agree to meet her before deciding?" Sandro pleaded.

"Next week, huh?" Raphael asked, looking askance at him. "After you've recovered n' told ya mom, I imagine? Ya know, I think it sounds pretty fair if I say that these illicit visits need to stop, prior to us sortin everything all out." _April'd hang me if I didn't insist upon at least that._

Sandro's stared at him without expression for a moment, like he was looking for some protest, but had run into how reasonable the request was. Just five days, give or take. Not the end of the world. Hell, he could come clean to his mom _right then and there_ , and it'd be over with and he'd have his verdict. But instead Sandro asked: "Can you just break my other leg instead and call it square?"

" _Hey_ ," Raphael grimaced. "Shit, kid. Ain't a _punishment_ , just common sense!Na gonna lie, kinda paranoid about strangers I ain't checked out first hangin around my family. Already got Donatello and Mikey on some other un-agreed-upon page when it comes ta ya safety, and ain't happy about that at all. Puttin off talkin to them about it cause its clear it means somethin to ya."

The boy's face fell dramatically, from merely nervous to _absolutely depressed_. Raphael raised a brow, startled. Sandro looked around as if searching for something a moment, shifted a bit in place, and then slumped. "S'fair," he said very quietly. Only he really did sound like he'd have taken the broken leg and called it a better deal.

"Na, c'mon," Raphael leaned over and nudged his chin, "talk ta me. Sandro?"

"I... just... could really use a friend right now," Sandro said in a tight voice, as if submitting the tip top of an emotional iceberg. "And I only have one."

 _Oh good work: Kick the kid's ass and then take away the person who's gonna make him feel better afterward._ Guiltily, Raphael looked at the floor, and then the ceiling. It was extremely uncomfortable just thinkin of their son leanin on someone they'd never _met_ for this shit. But, fuck, talk about hypocritical! Splinter had never denied them any of the handful of relationships which had cropped up in their lives by chance encounter. One of those 'relationships' had helped kill their father, and nearly killed Leo... But one of those relationships had been April. Another had been Casey, who to this day was still Raph's best friend. And Sandro had just met _a girl._ (A girl, a girl, a girl! Raph knew exactly what that _felt_ like.)

"When I can't get to her, when she's being kept from me, I don't know what to do. I start feeling physically ill, like the end of the entire world is looming over me. That sounds stupid, but it's happened two or three times now."

The level of feels gushing out right there was heart-breaking, especially because it was clear from the fettered, hazarded way Sandro blurt the syllables out that he was afraid of not being taken seriously if he dared to talk about feelings. Raphael took in a deep breath. "Look," he said. "If ya mom asks, I don't know a damn thing about no stranger visitin our house, and I definitely didn't tell you that she could keep comin over. Ya got that?"

Sandro twisted to gape at him with wide eyes. "Really?"

"I ain't said _nothin,_ " Raphael repeated. "And I ain't heard nothin either. This part of the conversation– It didn't happen."

The excited joy which bloomed up in the kid's face was almost _comical._ Sandro might as well have been told he was getting a puppy for Christmas. For a second, Raphael felt absurdly successful at fatherhood, even though he obviously wasn't, and he nearly laughed. Kid could have just peed himself in excitement, and Raph would have believed it.

"So," Raphael cleared his throat and tried not to smile, "I don't think I caught your friend's _name._ "

"Technically it's 'Anastasia,' but no one calls her that. Everyone has their own nickname, or just uses her preferred pseudonym: Wildcard."

"Well whadda _you_ call her?"

"Loudmouth. Miss Crazy Face. Wild. Yang. Get Back Here, That's My Food, You Can't Have It. Whatever best suits the occasion."

Raphael smirked. "And uh, what did you and this girl _do_ , exactly? Kinda had a lot of time alone together." _Crossin my fingers here ya ain't_ _fooled around with her._

"Mostly wander around a lot," Sandro reflected. "We stuck to the neutral areas, and walked the river, the docks and old warehouses, where we had to be stealthy sneaking into and out of shipping places. Lots of climbing and roof runs. She's very good at parkour, but she asked me to teach her martial arts, so we'd have to find places that were safe to practice in, like empty lots, and clear them of beer bottle glass and old nails and stuff. We'd always eat together. Sometimes we'd sneak inside somewhere we really shouldn't've. What else? A lot of homework, actually."

"Hold the phone, ya were riskin all that trouble ta do _homework?"_

"Yeah. She's got a really bad reading disability, but is good in the maths and sciences. So we tutor each other. I've been helping her get her English grade up. It was a D when she started, and we're up to about a B- right now." He blushed a little. "Guess that's incredibly dorky, but I took pretty much every excuse possible to spend time with her instead of down here."

Raphael frowned. "Ya were raised ta see goin topside as somethin ya should only do if it were _absolutely necessary,_ not somethin you go huntin excuses for." And even Raphael, who had snuck out _a lot_ , had thought of it as a desperate sort of _treat._

"Feeling normal was addictive," Sandro admitted, and Raphael knew exactly what he meant so sharply it winded him for a sec. "We went to the park a lot, with people everywhere, and she'd lead me by the hand and I'd keep my head ducked, and she'd stop anyone from getting close enough to bump into me or chance seeing my face. I wasn't strange. I was just some snot-nosed girl's shy, autistic older brother or something. I _loved_ it. And that's why I got grounded. So that's over."

Speakin' of hypocritical advice, eh-heh. _Wait a sec._ "The park? At night?"

"Sure. Sometimes."

Overprotective parental instincts surged. "Have ya been outside _durin the day?!_ "

"Was so hot in that coat," Sandro gushed guiltily, but with a big smile. "Was so hot and was so _nice_. Had a picnic, and she bought a parasol 'for herself' which I had to carry for little miss princess, because conveniently we used it to block the view of anyone in front of me." He covered his face, as if thinking back. "Ate _Subway_ sandwiches on a picnic blanket, and laid down in the shade of a tree with her at my back, and just enjoyed all the smell of cut grass and the sound of people playing while I read a book. If I never do it again, I will always get to remember going to the park at just bein _nobody_ for a few hours."

That... ...Sounded fucking fantastic. Sounded like something he'd have done, if he'd thought he coulda pulled it off. Sounded like a better version of a hundred stupid things he and his brothers had done, while desperate to see or experience or _sneak_ bits of the upstairs world. The amount of shit the four of them had gotten away was way more than Sandro had ever even tried. Raphael grimaced, torn between blurting 'Are you out of your goddamn mind?!' and/or giving the kid a high-three and a knuckle sandwich.

"Well... don't do it again," was the lame thing he ended up saying, but Sandro nodded very clearly, and seemed he did know he'd done something _very stupid_. Raphael took a deep breath, resolved not to fight with Donatello (yet), and then went to stand. "Alright, I think I maybe shouldn't ask any more, so ya mom has no excuse ta nag me for findin out first and not tellin her. NExt weekend, right?" Sandro bobbed his head enthusiastically. Raphael affectionately nudged his cheek "I'mma get ya some water. Ya took pain meds already, right?" Sandro bobbed his head again, and Raphael reached out to tousle the mask ties and top of the bandanna. That bandanna...

 _He only even wears it cause she gave it to 'im._ And that was the crazy bit, because to all of them, to all four other turtles, their _color_ was just... part of them, part of their identity. Which made it like this girl, this 'other half,' _Yang_ , was part of _Sandro's identity._ And Raphael hadn't even met her. Red Turtle chewed over that thought as he went to the kitchen.

 _He has a friend._

 _And he told *me* instead of his mom._

Man, if that weren't the most humblin' thing in the world...

* * *

Sandro was _thrilled_ , Sandro was _excited_ , Sandro was _not dead!_

Oof. Sandro was _exhausted._

A heightened emotional state over the better part of an hour had left him pooped. W-Well Sandro was definitely not going to bed for another six hour nap! He came into the kitchen for lunch time, with his family all assembled to eat, and the sight of them all made him smile so hard. He was in such a good mood it felt like everything was lighter. Oh?

Curiously, there was a white box waiting at his spot on the table, and he came up to see it. "What's this?"

"Was at the pick-up address this morning," Leonardo said.

It wasn't addressed to Sandro, which was suspicious, but of course Leo wouldn't have brought anything dangerous into the house; he'd have consulted Donatello. It smelled of sugar, hmm. The boy leaned his crutch against the table and opened it...

... to find a dozen doughnuts that were devil's food cake, half-cruller, half hand-sculpted, and looked like little crocodile ouroboroses, with their tails clutched in their own mouths. The sight of them startled a laugh out of him. "That's right!" he recalled. "I ordered Jersey's best doughnuts." Holy _shit_ would this have stabbed him in the feels if that conversation with his father had gone differently, or if Raphael even hadn't reneged on his instruction that Wild couldn't visit that week Sandro could just imagine himself taking one look at these artisan doughnuts and then breaking down sobbing to the alarm and confusion of all his relatives. _She actually sent me doughnuts! Ha!_

"The _best_?" Mikey chirped. "What for?"

"My self-pity party," Sandro yawned, picking up one of the crocodiles to admire it. "But now I'm feeling better, so I guess I'll share instead of hiding alone in my room and pigging out on doughnuts. I can't even believe you can really order them like this, this is amazing."

He put the first one on his mother's plate, and though she appeared bemused by his doughnut ordering habits and/or why he knew where to get Jersey's best, she took it with a thanks (and yet another inquiry as to how he was feeling. He repeated his earlier assertion: _Much better_.) Donnie and Mikey seemed to recognize the crocodile motif of Wild's last gift to him, but Raphael's sharp-eyed look suggested he has a suspicion or two. Still, the doughnuts had made it into the house and past Donnie, and he took one with a thanks. Sandro beamed.

God. Mmmn. They really were fantastic doughnuts. It was miraculous Wildcard hadn't cleaned out half the box herself before... whatever she'd done to get them to his house! His family members complemented them and asked where they had come from, and he told them 'nuh-uh! my secret!' Hidden under all the doughnuts looked to be a slip of nondescript white paper, and he lifted the edge up to peek underneath to spy ink written in green:

Instructions for Burnt Offerings:  
Roses are Red  
Violets are Blue  
Please come back from the Dead  
Cause I Love *You!*

What a little _sap_ she was...!

* * *

Wildcard had been stamped upon the hand with 'below 18,' which was the only reason she was allowed in Cashew's. Because, _hilariously_ , you couldn't get the cops to a joint over drug deals, weekly shoot-outs, or a surprisingly high number of mutants and anonymous persons, but dammit if you served alcohol to a minor you were gonna end up in the Clinker till the end of days! She hung out on the bar, swinging her legs and passing glasses back and forward from her dad to the waitresses.

Those waitresses were soldiers, man, power to them. They had to deal with so much crap from the clientele, and the way they either soaked it or side-stepped it surely earned them a membership in some kind of sisterhood.

Wildcard's phone vibrated, and she gathered it up and glanced at her chat to see Sandro had written, in all capital letters:

'I TOLD MY DAD ! ! !'  
'HE DIDN'T FREAK OUT ! ! !'  
A string of fantastic emojis celebrating the entire universe followed.

Wildcard nearly tossed/fumbled her phone in surprise and then rapidly texted: 'The same dad who you just fought with!?'

'YES! YES YES YES!'

'Does this mean I shouldn't hide all his left socks, put rotten dairy products in his pillow, and fill his favorite jam with Tabasco sauce?'

'...' Sandro clearly needed to think about this. Understandable! Hot sauce had a way of making people rethink things! 'He'd just blame Mikey.'

'Note to self: Enlist Mikey, prank Leo while we're at it.'

'DID YOU NOT HEAR ME ABOUT THE TELLING HIM PART!? FOCUS, WILD! FOCUS!'

* * *

Sunday was creeping past, but Sandro _needed_ a nap after lunch. Still, he was determined not to pass out and wake up to find his mom and dad had already left for New York! He told Donatello his leg 'really hurt' (which wasn't entirely untrue) and asked him to wake him up in an hour for more Tylenol. Hopefully this masterful plan would keep Donnie from conveniently 'forgetting' Sandro's request in favor of getting him to sleep himself out, as Donnie would feel guilty for not providing him with the requested pain medication.

So Sandro hobbled over to the couch, scouted it out as a reasonable compromise, and then climbed onto it (gingerly, his leg really did hurt), and was asleep pretty much before he'd even curled up with the cushion. Somebody must have come up and put the _Red Bulls_ fleece over him, because it was there when Donnie came to wake him up. Groggy and dazed, Sandro nevertheless sat up and took his medicine—three pills, this time, and Sandro decided to take all three—and drank down his water.

"Where are my parents?" he asked immediately.

"Right here," April chuckled as she leaned over the couch beside Donnie. "Your father's in the dojo with Leo. You want to watch a movie with me and Mikey, maybe?"

Yes. That. That would let him spend time with Mom. April turned to call out to Mikey, who voiced his appreciation with a loud "Wahoo, movie night! I'm makin' popcorn!"

"We already have doughnuts to finish!" April protested.

"Popcorn and doughnuts and leftover cake and cookies!"

April sighed and looked to Donatello. "I have no idea how you've managed to keep him from putting on weight all these years."

"Sometimes I hook a piece of pizza on a fishing rod and tie it to his head, so it always dangles just outside of his reach," Donatello joked. "Keeps him running about for hours. Excellent cardio."

* * *

Sandro blinked awake to the slow realization that he must have fallen asleep. Sitting next to his mother, with her borrowing half of his fleece, he must have leaned into her and then closed his eyes for a second. Betimes he'd woken up, it was _late_ , and Mom hadn't moved so as not to wake him. She and Mikey had finished _three_ movies just to keep him asleep, if the stacked Blue-Ray disks were any indication.

Sandro tensed up, and looked between his uncle and his mother.

They'd both worked _so hard_ to make sure he slept. Mom had apparently sat like six solid hours in the same place with her heavy turtle son asleep on her shoulder, all because she'd seen how tired he was. That was incredibly sweet, and yet they'd stolen those six hours from him, hours he'd wanted to be awake. He felt let down, and smothered, and sad, and loved, all at the same time; adrift in an ocean, and sinking deeper and deeper, forgotten, beneath the waves.

It was Sunday.

His mother smiled at him and asked if he felt any better, and Mikey got him the next dose of Tylenol (further proof it had been a full six hours).

Sandro took the medicine with a thin smile he didn't feel, and a sullen attitude. He sat up of his own accord, and dug his nails into his palms when he felt his mother rise up from the couch. _Stay..._ At first she just stretched her poor back and neck, and she did turn back to him and touched the side of his face.

"I know I haven't really talked to you about... your dad, but I figured with how much time you wanted to spend with him, maybe you didn't want to hear it. But we'll be leaving in about an hour, and I feel like I haven't done enough to check up on you."

"I'm fine," Sandro muttered. "Just wanna be left alone right now." _I think I might be unstable._

"Alright, honey." She kissed his brow and then went to find his father. Sandro sawed his beak together, and tried not to flip out.

But the sounds of his parents packing up were a torture on his senses. He hated just sitting there, listening to it, listening to that proof they were leaving. _Again_. With no proof that anything would be different, or better, when they came back!

 _Stop. Dad talked to you. He told you he'd treat you differently. He told you that whole story about 'not being a mistake' and you told him about Wild. That went amazingly well_ _He said he plans to talk to mom himself about the whole college thing. The worst is already over!_

But that wasn't how it felt. It felt like anger, surging up through his chest and trickling along his arms. It felt like resentment, for being hurt, for being hurt by _dad_. And fear, fear Raphael might tell April anyway and he might get a call in the middle of the week with a very disappointed mother on the other line, laying down her law like some foreign emperor who had no idea how much things meant. He wanted her to stay. He wanted Raphael to stay.

Dread. Abandonment. Loathing. Betrayal.

He wanted to rewind the day and watch those movies with Mom, and hush Mikey, and make small-talk in-between instead of having to watch _three movies in one sitting._ He could have asked her about work, but now that work was taking her away to someplace he couldn't follow. She was putting her involvement in _his life_ on pause to go do Reporting and Business things, despite the fact that he'd just been slashed and beaten by her husband and—for all she knew!—everything about their family might be forever different and seriously messed up as a result. Nope! It was Sunday night; Duty calls. Time to go. No 'maybe I should take off a day and spend it entirely with Sandro and make sure he isn't masking an unstable mental state.' Nothing!

 _She took off before and after your birthday to give you a fantastic party, and that was just last week! You spent the whole weekend in places Raphael goes but she doesn't! What do you want from her!? Just ask for it!_

Sandro wasn't sure which of his thoughts or emotions or justifications were supposed to be the valid ones, they were all swirling around and seemed equally plausible. He got up and crossed the house. And when Donatello tried to intercept him and ask if he'd like some dinner, Sandro snapped, "I don't want to talk."

"Yo, Lil Bro! Donnie's just askin if you want some–"

"I said LEAVE ME ALONE!" Sandro whirled on him with a roar.

Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at him, and that was the only reason Sandro realized how _loud_ he'd just been, and how much _hate_ he'd just channeled into so few words. His mother and Father stared from down the hall. Leo stared from where he'd lifted tea halfway to his mouth. Mikey looked wounded.

 _FOR FUCK'S SAKE, SANDRO. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK._ He whirled away from them, incensed, energized in all the wrong ways, and grabbed his door and shoved it open. He slammed it behind him because he had no ability _not_ to slam it.

* * *

Donnie had asked him, ' _Should I expect a crash?'_ and now Sandro knew the answer: _Yes. Yes, and I don't understand where the cracks are, or how all the emotion seethes out like a thousand leaks in a monsoon, and I'm scared this is beyond the bounds of what it's normal or sane to feel._

He sat down on his bed harder than he ought to have, and his tail shoved the crutche away from himself and let it clatter on the ground and partially under his bed... and on something else?

Sandro frowned and then leaned over and slowly picked up a twenty-five pound dumbbell from where it had been placed under his bed. His nose wrinkled and his fingers tightened on the leather grip, and he felt tears bead suddenly at the corners of his eyes. _Please..._ He crumpled, and almost _threw_ the weight before redirecting his attention back to the space under his bed and carefully putting it alongside its twin down there. Then he turned and, despite all the pain in his hip, flopped himself down on his bed and clutched his pillow tightly to his face.

He heard his door open, and adrenaline lit up his spine. _I am a hurricane inside! GET OUT!_

"Sandro, honey?" _Mom_. "Are you oka-?"

He picked his head up to glare daggers at her. "I just said I don't want to talk!" he spat. "What in god's name is ambiguous about that!? Just leave me alone, everyone leave me alone, for five stinking seconds!" Each and every granual Sandro had left of self-control had gone into not cursing at her. If he'd cursed, it would have all been over. Raphael would have flipped, Mom would have flipped, even Donnie would have flipped.

Mom looked ready to argue with him or take issue with his tone. Sandro dropped his head back into the pillow, and got his forearms over his head like a barricade.

...He heard the door close, and breathed out a loud huff of relief.

Muffled came the sounds of his parents as they finished packing, as hollowed anticipation mounted, and kept quiet until he heard everyone say their farewells and the front door had closed behind them. Then the sobs surged up, loud and rough, from a place inside him that hadn't been properly mapped or understood yet, and he sobbed bitterly and angrily into his pillow. At that moment, he honestly hated everyone, but no one quite as badly as _himself,_ that he could be so mindbogglingly out of control over _basically_ nothing... or, well, just _alternative feelings_ to past events than the feelings he'd previously been feeling about them.

He wasn't sure how much time passed when another knock came at his door, but it felt like it had been a long time. He'd been dosing in and out, in some kind of fugue. "Leave..." he growled, propping himself up with his hands as the door cracked open, "Me..." he twisted to glare, " _ALONE-"_

Wildcard hurried in, and clambered onto the bed, and up over his good leg as he struggled to sit himself up properly, and peered at him with wide hazel eyes behind that bright white bandanna. "I haven't slept in three days," she announced factually.

What... what _day_ was it? He glanced to the side but didn't manage to catch a glimpse of his alarm clock (which he'd turned the wrong way in his desire to throw it), and then she was prying curiously at his bandages, and he reflexively _did not want her to see._ (Like she hadn't wanted him to know about _her_ dad at his worst.)

"Let me see," she insisted.

He grimaced and looked down at his bandaged plastron and then up at her, and then down again. Hesitantly, he leaned back and unhooked the bandage tape so the two of them could ease aside the cotton and gauze. The injury was one of those flesh-only things, like if you skinned your elbow, which didn't really _bleed_ but sorta just _wept_ yellow and pink moisture out as they slowly healed in a mottled, funny-colored scab. She inspected the sight of it, and her fingertips ran soft and light over the carapace above and blow it as she traced the length.

"Is that gonna scar?" she asked the thing everyone else had been dreading but no one had dared to wonder aloud. "Cause that would look totally badass. Not that I'm suggesting we blindfold me and throw stars at you to make some more badass scars so this one doesn't feel lonely, or anything. Say, are you _sure_ I can't put Tabasco sauce in his jam?"

Sandro stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then he sat up all at once, and fisted his arms around her and squeezed her to him, clutching her fiercely to his shoulder. She clawed hold of his shell to hug him back just as tightly. The anger, stress, and despair bled out of him with each ragged breath he took, as the very muscles and plates of his shell relaxed in a tingle under her fingertips. A calm and quiet zen overtook him, centered and still. Sandro tucked his snout into her shoulder, and closed his eyes.

He knew exactly what he was, and that he was not insane, and that he and his parents were fallible and made mistakes. He knew they were too distant from him, and that change would be hard by necessary. He knew his father's abuse had been unintended but would have consequences. He knew he loved them, and that they loved him, and that the dissonance between these emotions was very hard on him both physically and emotionally, and that he would need to occasionally vent. And he knew he'd channeled the spirit and energy of his twin to carry him through some of the most difficult and pivotal conversations of his life this weekend, which made perfect sense; because whenever he was physically around Wild, he got to learn more about _who_ he was.

And he knew that the next time someone threatened to take his twin from him, or told him he was forbidden from seeing her, he'd _fight_.


	62. Half-Time Report

Donatello worried his hands nervously together, as Michelangelo peered fearfully around him to catch sight of Sandro's door. "Did it work?" Orange Turtle whispered loudly. "It's been, what, fifteen minutes? I don't hear any yelling... That's good, right?"

Donatello shook his head unknowingly. "He had a very difficult set of days," Purple said. "It's entirely understandable his emotions are haywire, and it's amazing he didn't fall apart any earlier. I didn't think anyone could handle themselves that well for that long under so much stress."

"... So do you think he might want dinner now?" Mikey had something of a one-track mind, but Sandro _was_ healing and really could use the calories.

"We'll see. Where even was she, Leo?" Donatello wondered, as their eldest brother stepped quietly down the hall and apparently went to peruse a linen closet.

"I glanced up to see her secreting herself in the side tunnels," Leonardo explained, sifting and poking through linens. "And clandestinely tabbed out those cameras."

 _Hurrah, one more day passed in successful deception of our family members._ Donatello couldn't bring himself to congratulation Leo's counter-parental ninja finesse. "What are you doing?" it finally occurred to him to ask, for Leo had extracted a neat bundle of traditional _futon_ bedding, both the _shikibuton_ mat and _kakebuton_ duvet cover, and a small _makura_.

"I have a suspicion I am needed for an intervention," Leo answered, neatly closing the linen cabinet without a thing displaced or rumpled, and then returning to the living room and easing Sandro's door open.

"An intervention?" Bewildered, Donatello came up to see what Leo might mean, and Mikey tiptoed respectfully after him.

They found both children curled up together upon the same bed, fast asleep. There was so little room for this that Sandro's shell was pushed into the wall and Wildcard's feet dangled off the edge of the bed, which one supposed was fortunate because she hadn't removed her outdoor tabi. In fact it seemed she'd lacked even the energy to worm under the blankets, which was also fortunate, because if memory served Sandro wasn't wearing any clothing except for bandages and compression wraps.

Leo let out a heavy breath through his nose and shook his head. Such impropriety. Tut tut. He entered and laid down the bedding he'd selected and straightened it, and then he reached up and attempted to extract a very peculiar little human from the edge of the bed. Donatello and Mikey both tilted their heads to the side, very nearly in unison.

Wildcard woke up almost immediately, and twitched and protested blearily. "No. No, no, no..."

Sandro was so tightly latched onto her that moving her roused him as well, but Leo gently dragged the protesting girl off the edge of the bed and settled her down on the bedding. Sandro rolled onto his belly to keep hold of her arm.

"Oh," she mumbled on realizing how near her bed was, and that this was not so bad a translocation, and then she slumped where she'd been deposited and didn't move as Leo removed both of her tabi and pulled the cover over her. Sandro's fingers found hers.

Leo stood, and returned to the doorway, and went to go put those tabi by the doorway where they belonged and mop the floor where they'd dared to track. There was nothing in his blank and tranquil expression which suggested he knew he'd done anything strange. Michelangelo and Donatello watched him go, and then looked back to where the two children were already apparently asleep again. And holding hands.

Donatello blinked vacantly at the scene. Then he reached out, and took the edge of the door, and eased it slooowwlly shut without a click or clatter.

"That was - so \- cute," Mikey mumbled.

"That was an unquantifiable degree of adorable," Donatello echoed faintly, because truth be told he had one hell of a weak spot for the sappy things in life. "Except now there's a teenage girl having a sleepover in our nephew's bedroom, and April's going to kill me."

"I'll protected ya bro," Mikey said. "I'll testify how cute it was."

Donatello shook his head, sighed, and patted his brother on the shell. "I'm sure you would." He then turned to go clean up their dinner.

* * *

Wildcard woke to the sensation of fingers stirring her hair, and blinked awake to the slow realization she was curled up on some kind of very neat floor palette alongside a proper bed. Her tiny pillow was probably only a foot across, but it molded like clay around her to hold her head steady. She blinked and then looked slowly up, to where a quiet turtle boy was shimmied up upon the edge of his bed, and one copper eye watched her. He lifted his head for a second, and then dropped it again.

"Hey," he rumbled.

She smiled a little. And then she smiled wide, and closed her eyes, and stretched. "Well that's a sight I could get used to waking up to." she chirruped mischievously.

He made a disgusted noise. "Don't push your luck."

Wildcard giggled contentedly, rolling onto her back and admiring how comfortable her thin little mattress was. Especially since she'd just fallen asleep in full costume, and her chest piece wasn't exactly _comfortable._ She lifted an arm, and wrapped it about Sandro's, and rested her fingers on the curve of his shoulder. "We're so clingy," she hummed. "We probably have a psychiatric disorder."

"You have a _surfeit_ ofpsychiatric disorders," Sandro muttered. "I'll have you know I was owed _three_ brothers and instead I just got you. And you're _tardy,_ so I'm expecting a lot of catch-up work."

"Awwww..." she turned her head away, probably blushing. "I should count my lucky stars your uncles even let me in so late at night, that was really stretching my boundaries. And then they let me sleep over!"

"Dad _nearly_ said you couldn't come," her turtle said softly.

"Pfft, not gonna lie: He woulda walked out his front door to find me on my knees with tears streaming down my face, with my little hands clasped together in front of me as I babbled 'please please please let me see him i haven't slept in days he's my only friend pleaase' and then hugging his leg and bawling like a newborn baby," she drawled. "I was not in the right condition to make rational decisions last night. It would have been a disaster. A hilarious, hilarious, hilarious disaster." She peered up at him.

A smile flickered over his face. "Hmm. Ya know, that might have actually worked. It would have been really hard for everyone to yell at one another successfully with this deliriously wailing kid clinging to everybody's leg like a baby as they tried to usher her out. Mikey would eventually crack and push everyone aside to rush over and pick you up, and when they tried to censure him he'd flip out on them, and then everybody would have stood there around in awkward confusion as he got you some ice cream and otherwise treated you exactly like a four year old whose puppy had just died."

"Woulda been one hell of a show," she agreed. "How's your everything, by the way? Not that I could really get the fully story out of Leo, but by his general discomfort and teeny tiny grimaces, I gathered you had the stuffing knocked out of you. You feeling it?"

"I have a bad leg and am achey all over," her poor turtle groaned. "I'm going to be completely useless today." He shifted.

"N'awwww, let's just sit on the couch and play our farming game all day, and be laaazzyyy. Can we do that? How long did we _sleep_?"

"Well, judging by the clock, Uncle Leo's canceled your Ninjitsu lessons this morning."

" _That_ long?" Wild asked in disbelief, tilting her head back to try and catch sight of this clock he'd spoken of. "Well he unabashedly deserves a break from me. He came out in the middle of the day both Saturday and Sunday to intercept me before I could even _plan_ anything stupid. He letting me tag along after him for hours both times, and lectured me on stealth."

" _Leo_ did that?" Sandro lifted his head with a puzzled frown, an expression which transitioned to realization. "He was taking naps, and I didn't even catch it."

"Nobody catches that turtle doing _anything_ ," Wildcard fluster-gushed. "You think stealth naps are impressive!? He can walk up right behind me and stare down at me for full five minutes with his hands on his hips before I think of turning around and get the friggen shock of my life!" She stuck out her tongue in a grimace and feigned a tremendous shudder. "And then it's like "Uh, Hi, Sensei! Uh, no I wasn't planning to ride down this clothesline and kick that man's bad toupé off! What sense would that make!? I didn't even have a one-liner readied yet!""

Sandro groaned and reached over to cover her face with a hand. "You're insane," he laughed, and she cackled and pushed his hand away, and he ruffled her hair. "Help me to breakfast?"

" _Absolutely,_ sweet damsel." She kicked aside her blankets and scooted herself into a seated position. "Which leg's messed up, by the way?" He started to push himself up.

"Left one. And _be nice_ , it was seriously painful just to _exist_ all yesterday and the day before, and it's only marginally better today." She affected sainthood, and adjusted her crooked halo. "Wait!" She blinked, halfway to her feet. "Um. Never mind. Go to breakfast first, I'll be out in a second."

"Wait, what?" she raised a brow. "Why?"

Sandro huffed a heavy breath. "Do. Not. Tease." He looked up at her with dangerous metallic eyes, and quickly grabbed the edge of his blanket as if fearful she'd grab it off. "And don't argue. I need to _dress_ if you're gonna be over."

She blinked, and then leaked a snicker through her nose. "Hokaaayy, if you insssissst... But," she turned and hopped up to his dresser, "how about I at least get your clothes out for you, poor damsel?" She opened a drawer. "Ee! You own tabi socks! Do you have any tall ones. Okay you're wearing them. Those socks look _great_ on Leo."

Sandro moaned at the realization he was about to be dressed by his sister, but he didn't protest as he shifted to get his legs off the side of the bed and kept the blanket wrapped modestly over his lap to wait as she savaged his drawers with wanton glee. Belatedly it occurred to her that everything had been neatly folded before she'd started looking through them, and that now half the drawers were ajar and random edges of clothing were sticking out.

"Random psychology test!" Wildcard announced, and then turned to Sandro with one of two shirts she'd always suspected he'd owned but had never seen him wear. "How does this color make you _feel_? Cause last time I checked, two radically bipolar-ly different encounters happened between you and your Dad recently, and I would expect that to make anybody a little crazy! How scrambled are your brains, exactly?"

The shirt was scarlet, and Sandro took a quick breath in visible surprise. He frowned thoughtfully, and then tilted his head to the side and reached out and took it from her and held it for a moment and rubbed it between his fingertips. Then he shifted a foot, and leaned over, and picked up—of all things—a dumbbell from where he'd apparently had it underneath his bed. He held it for a moment as if it were something sentimental, instead of a symbol of machismo. Then he settled it down on the bed beside himself. "I don't know. It's complicated."

"Well I'll be angry at him for you, then. What color _do_ you want to wear?" she asked. "Black always looks _fab_ on you. You could be the Dread Pirate Roberts! Or just Zoro and slash Ts into everything!"

"They would be Hs, for Hamato." He looked back down at the red shirt.

"Oh yeah... Or you could do Japanese kanji!" she recalled as she gathered up his other clothing items and passed them to him.

"Might be tedious to _slash_ kanji into something. Although, ya know, I think we actually _have_ a favorite kanji graffiti. It's ' _kazoku.'_ If you know what to look for, you can still find it spray painted here or there around the city."

"Really! What's it mean?"

"It's what's carved on the wall of the exercise room." He put his clothing down beside him, red shirt included. "Means ' _Family_.' Anyway, shoo! I'm not dressing with you in here, and that's final."

* * *

It didn't occur to Donatello that he hadn't seen Sandro in red since early childhood, until the boy exited his room neatly dressed in crimson and absently curling a free weight. Purple Turtle's face must have given away quite a lot of surprise and confusion, because Wildcard caught on and turned around to grin.

"Hey princess!" she called gleefully. "Don't _you_ look lovely today!"

Sandro leaned his crutch against her chair and covered her face with a hand, and she snickered and pushed him away.

"I'm eating! Don't make me lick your fingers to give you cooties! Rawr! Rawr rawr rawr."

Sandro took the seat beside her, and leaned over to settle the weight on the ground. "Um," he cleared his throat as he sat back up. "Donnie, Mikey, I'm sorry for yelling last night. Was wrong of me, but I seriously felt outta control for a bit there."

"You _scared_ me!" Mikey blurted, blue eyes widening.

"Mikey!" Donnie admonished but then remembered to feed their poor nephew. "It's fine, Sandro, it would have been normal for you to 'yell' a lot earlier and a lot more than that. Why... _red_ if I might ask?" A persistent worry nagged, that after the thorough job Raphael had done taking care of him after the incident, Sandro might expect too much of Raphael too fast and thus set himself up for a catastrophic broken heart. Or worse, he might be in denial about what had happened. With the boy's moods clearly _oscillating_ as he tried to work through the event, it was difficult to be sure what impressions would stick with him.

"Uh, cause it looks good?" Mikey chirped.

"Because I intend to be a lazy bum sitting on the couch playing Harvest Moon all day," Sandro yawned, and gratefully took his plate. "And this is ironic."

Oh. Well then. Ahem. "So how _do_ you feel about your father right now?" Disgust? Anger? Forgiveness? Nothing? Clearly not _admiration,_ which was the sort of extreme psychological whiplash Donnie had been afraid of.

Sandro shrugged and just ate.

Wildcard wrinkled her nose. "Wait didn't you tell Donnie?" She looked at Sandro, and her eyes widened. "Did you tell anyone but _me_!?"

Sandro choked a little and then cleared his throat. "Uh. Mom was around, so I kinda couldn't..."

"Tell us what, yo?" Mikey wondered through a mouthful of food, and Donnie raised a brow.

Wildcard pointed accusingly at Sandro. "He told Mr. Mean Father about _me_."

Mikey dramatically dropped his fork, gasped and slapped a hand to either side of his face. Donatello's reaction was much less tame: He dropped his griddle with a loud clatter and a message spillage of hashed browns. "What?" he croaked, stepping back up to the table and leaning over it with his palms flat on the surface. "You did _what_?"

"We were talking in the weight room," Sandro said, "and I asked him if I could talk to him about something important and I... told him."

" _Alone?"_ Donnie's voice cracked.

Sandro nodded.

Donnie came up beside him and touched his shoulder and head, and then took in a deep breath and sighed it out in a twisted mixture of anxiety and relief. "Of all the ways that could have gone... You did _not_ owe him that."

"Never said I did," Sandro shrugged. "Just had a good chance to be honest with him, and got him to promise he wouldn't get mad, so I winged it and told him the basics and asked if I could introduce Wild next week after I'd come clean to mom."

Donatello blew out another sigh, and then took the seat beside him and scooted near to listen. "What else happened? How did he react?"

"Well, it wasn't easy talking to him, but he didn't freak out, and he knows I want to talk to mom myself. He was okay with that. Not _entirely_ glad people were 'hiding' stuff from him. All that practice helped me hold it together, you'd've been proud. I did get... kinda _trapped_ once, but fortunately he felt bad for me and let me out of it." Donnie sat back and nodded, and Mikey burst with a 'huzzah!' "It was kinda just like a normal conversation... Almost... _underwhelming_ in retrospect. Donnie? Neither of them is gonna like hearing that Wild's been visiting without their permission. Do you know what you're going to say about that?"

"Yes," Donnatello nodded. "I'm going to tell them the exact truth, which was that I was leery about this girl and wanted to see her for myself, both to get an excuse to scan her for anything I could trace back to the Foot, _and_ so that I could get a feeling for her character. Then before I knew it, she was having long philosophical conversations with you about your father, and this one was asking her to dress him in drag, and Leo started inviting her to Ninjitsu lessons, and frankly the situation got away from me and I'm _sorry_ for that. Sometimes its easier to apologize to a woman than to try and justify things."

"Oh." Sandro thought on this, and then nodded. "Okay."

Wildcard reached out and tapped Sandro's arm. "I'm sorry for calling you lovely," she said. "I have no justification."

Sandro raised a brow and then slumped and shuttered his eyes at her. "Really? _Really?_ "

His counterpart laughed and said, "Don't blame me! You look so _fantastic_ lifting weights, I have to counterbalance it with _something!_ Say you need to stop wearing cargo pants forever, I think this is the first time I've ever gotten to see your legs." She whistled a shrill cat-call. Sandro reached out and smacked her upside the head. "Snerk! Ha!"

"I can't believe you spontaneously told Raphael, much less after all of _that_ ," Donnie groaned, sinking in his chair for a bit before patting the boy's shell. "Good job. That was _brave_. That was really brave, and I'm guessing it was very good timing and people-reading to boot."

"And now we're halfway there!" Mikey crowed triumphantly. "Raphie's gonna be thinking about it early, so he won't have any knee-jerk angry stuff! San, you dun even know how, like, _strategic_ that is!"

"Well—pardon my French—but that _bastard_ still hit Sandro," Wildcard sniffed. "And since Sandro is handling it marvelously well, I—as his best friend—am entitled to be suitably miffed on his behalf, and want there to be a comeuppance. Which is why I went to Chinatown and procured a tiny bottle of phenomenally potent hot sauce; karma dictates it must go into the grape jelly."

"That's _vile_ ," Donatello told her and then made to stand. "Here, let me get it for you, it's on the top shelf. And don't use more than a few drops, or he'll smell it."

* * *

Sandro lay on the couch with his knee elevated by some pillows and a good supply of ice packs strapped to his person. Wild sat on the carpet, leaned up against the couch, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth even as she wasn't really encountering any demanding obstacles in their smooth-paced little farm game. He'd started off playing with the free-weight he'd brought out of his room, but now he was merely relaxing with an arm draped casually around where she was seated as he read any important dialog that came on screen.

"Hey, um, can you talk to me about something? I wanna be mad at your dad," Wild mentioned as she figured out how to milk cows, "but I don't know how to be if you aren't mad at him. It's making me feel like I'm being inappropriate, hamfisted, or an awkward fifth wheel or something."

"Actually I thought it was cute."

"Oh! Well, then, I'll continue. Um. I don't even know all what happened between you two, just that it _shouldn't_ have happened. Fill me in?"

"Well..." Sandro cleared his throat. "He came home already ready to taunt me for basically anything that crossed his mind, and practice in the dojo started off with a spar. Instead of cooling off, things heated up. I started complaining about mom, and then after about a half hour of that, I blew my top and called her a bitch. Dad gets more riled about insults to April than he does about _anything_ anyone could personally direct at him, and I knew when I said that stuff that I was crossing a line. He laid into me hard, fast, and immediately, and he weighs like two and a half times what I do, so soaking the hits with my best defensive blocks was the best I could do. T'be honest, at that point, I wasn't even mad at him for 'beating' me. I _wanted_ to fight him. I was just mono-dimensional-ly _pissed as fuck._ "

"Woo testosterone!" she threw her controller in the air, and Sandro grunted an affirmation. "So you feel partially to blame for what happened?"

"I know I shouldn't, but I do. I blamed myself for a lot of stuff in a very short time frame," Sandro admitted. "Everything from screwing up introducing you, to possibly splitting my family apart. My emotions were _insane_ , I should vent them too you later in the raw, if I can. But truth is, I knew how my dad's moods worked, and I didn't account for them."

She looked back at him. "You're the one whose told me I shouldn't have to take care of my dad, and that his moods aren't my fault."

"Yeah. Guess I did. Guess I was secretly talking from experience."

"Your advice was the right advice! Let's do a Spider Man quote: With Great Power comes Great Responsibility. Your dad's got an obligation to use his tremendous power over you—physically, authoritatively, emotionally, etc—and not abuse it. But he did abuse it."

"Yeah but parents have feelings, emotions, and faulty assumptions too, ya know," Sandro mentioned. "All relationships are two-sided, and parents don't magically turn into endless unconditional giving machines with infinite patience overnight. When you're nasty to them, sometimes they can't help but get nasty back. For all they do for us, they deserve some respect in exchange."

She snorted out a 'pfft!' which said exactly what she thought of anybody 'deserving' her respect. "That's like saying they deserve to be right even when they're wrong. Your dad being ultra-protective of your mother, to the point where it's impossible for you to even criticize her, is a huge problem that's negatively impacted your mental health in lots of ways. You can't just _give_ him that because you 'knew' he'd get angry." She crawled off to get her controller back.

"Wild a lot of parents would never, ever, let their kid get away with cussing out anybody, much less a member of their family."

"Yeah and so they put them in time out, or spank them, or confiscate their phone." She crawled back with controller in hand and plopped down again. "It's a difference of degree. If a kid turns up in public school with bruises cause she was disrespecting her daddy, a line's been crossed and social workers might eventually get involved."

"Wild, even though you pride yourself on how little control your own father has over you, it's not necessarily a good thing. When you're feeling crazy, he has no way to help you because you won't listen. He would have taken care of you all weekend, but you wouldn't have let him. You wouldn't have trusted in his opinions and oversight, and in fact you'd act in instinctive _defiance_ of him, out of some kind of deeply repressed resentment that he doesn't know how to guide you and can't even hold his own shit together. You love him, which is super important, and you _admire_ him, but you do not respect him."

"I don't think you respect your dad either, not even for all his strength, or else you wouldn't have made him mad," she shrugged. "And I don't respect anyone."

"That's not true. You don't respect _me?_ I'm not talking about the ironclad, straight-faced, do-everything-I-say kind of respect. I'm talking about where you sometimes let me win, or overpower you, because you know I might be right, and you trust me with that kind of power over you."

She hesitated, uncertain. "Well... um... Maybe? That wasn't ever something you _demanded_ of me."

"Actually I kinda _did._ I cornered you and was mad at you for not being honest with me, not trusting me. And later I was mad at you for ignoring my feelings and giving me up to Michelangelo, because that was extremely cruel and disrespectful towards your best friend. I expect you not to treat me with the same callous indifference you'd treat a stranger."

" _Does_ your dad respect your mom? Some people can be really hypocritical about that. "

"He's hypocritical about a lot of shit, but not that. Swearing, acting out, getting angry, breaking the rules, safety... After the fight, he almost seemed hyper self-aware of it, so maybe some of those things will change? I don't know. Started to dawn on me that he's close to my mom, sorta like I'm close to you, and they spend a _lot_ of time looking out for one-another with no one else to lean on. I'd get mad if people were saying shit about you.

"Well you're not 'people,' you're their kid."

"I know. I guess if no one else is going to drop the topic and let me pretend it didn't happen, then I'm just trying to _understand_ how it happened. I'm not trying to make excuses. But you know, In the end, Leo's advice to me was right: My dad was way more calm listening to me talk about _you_ than I'd ever expect my mom to be. He was probably still a little unsure where he stood with me, and he's definitely not happy with Donnie, but he was only bare-minimum suspicious about you, and sounded like he might even be trying to hide the fact that he was curious or even _excited?_ And... and he told me a story right before that... about how my mom nearly died in childbirth and he was the only one left who could make any decisions... and..." Sandro shuddered. "I knew he hadn't been telling me he cared about me because it was what a dad was _supposed_ to say. And I'd never had that certainty before... ya know? That I _meant_ something to him, and that he really wanted me to _know it_."

Wildcard frowned and puzzled over this. Then she said: "I guess I understand a little better why you said your feelings towards the color red are complex right now. But look: I can forgive your dad once, but probably not twice, and definitely not ever any more times than that. He can't hurt you like this again."

Sandro watched her for a moment and then nodded half to himself. "Maybe that's where I'm at with him, too."

She looked up at him for a moment, and then paused her game and got up on her knees to lean over him and drape her arms in a hug around his head. "I wanted to be with you all weekend," she said. "I wanted to hug you and hug you and hug you and tell you everything would be okay and nom the fingers off of all the mean peoples."

" _Wild_ ," he chuckled, looking bashfully down as she nuzzled gently into the side of his head.

"I'm _serious_ ," she pouted. "I went to crazy, in-denial, not-thinking-about-it, la-la land, because if I didn't I'd be sobbing uncontrollably and scrolling through endless pictures of sad kittens and puppies online, or have to take out my anger on street punks, or something." She pressed a firm kiss into his temple "You're mine you're mine you're mine, and somebody hurt you, and I wanted _blood_ or _snuggles_ and hopefully no combination of the two."

He growled softly, running a hand up along the back of her neck. "I weigh eighty pounds more than you, 'Le Tiny Chick,'" he rumbled, looking her with those rich copper-cold eyes. "You have _no idea_ how badly I want to be topside to make sure nothing happens _to you_. I blanked it out of my mind that you might do something stupid after I'd been hurt, because there was _nothing_ I could fucking do to help you, and not-thinking about it was better than being absolutely effing helpless in the worst possible way, when I was already helpless in so many others."

"Oh really?" she purred. "So I shouldn't tell you about all the cat-calls and drug offers I get now that I don't have a six-foot, broad-shouldered, 'big brother' following me around? Someone even tried to grab my _butt_."

Sandro's face went from intensely affectionate to cold and livid. "Okay. Time to write a hit-list."

* * *

"Do turtles get backaches?" she spontaneously asked.

"Uh. Actual turtles? I don't think actual turtles have any abdominal muscles whatsoever, so no. Giant mutant ninja turtles get back aches, there are some super tough tendons flexing our cartilage plating, we have a lot of very taut muscles back there."

"Roll over!" Wildcard demanded, and Sandro groaned.

"Yes, Queen Ana. Here, help me out, just lift it at the heel so I don't have to... Thanks. Okay. Successfully rolled over. Dunno how you expect to-"

Wildcard hopped up to stand on the arm-rest, and then cautiously stepped out barefoot onto his shell. "Does that hurt?" she wondered as she eased her weight done and stepped completely onto the shell.

"Oh _nnnoooooo_ ," mumbled her turtle into his pillow and arm-rest. "That does not hurt _at all_..."

"Hee! Am I heavy enough?" she kept her weight on her heels, stepping carefully down the expanse of his shell, and to either side.

"Welllll... it's not a deep tissue massage. Oh. S-stand on your left foot. Right... yes..." She heard an audible _pop._ "Haa... thanksss..."

"You sound _drunk_ ," she cackled, finding seams of the shell with her toes, and carefully stepping on each new scute to tug it gently away from the scute before it. She did this for each set of plates, and got more than one small crack in exchange. He really _was_ achey all-over. Then she walked slowly back up to his shoulders, and knelt down there, and reached under the lip of his shell to find the back of his neck and shoulder. If one pushed in under the lip of the shell, skin elasticity let her feel deep in over his unusual shoulder-blade.

"So do you really have no _ribs_?" she wondered.

"Feel to the side. That's a rib. And here..." He reached up and took her hand, and brought it under his arm. "Ya feel that? Above the hard wall of the plastron? That's a rib. Has ta be; human first and second ribs are instrumental in flexing the arm. Got a second layer of bone floating over it like a cushion in some places, so it can support the shell."

"One, two... You would be _really_ hard to stab into!" she realized.

"Oh that's not an ominous thing to tell a person."

She giggled. "I'm marveling," she reassured. "Things I dont' have to worry about: overhand stabs having a high likelihood of getting past your defensive matrix of shell and ribs." He smiled to himself, endeared by both her curiousity and care. She ran her fingers and nails over his scalp, and he melted even further. "Does this feel as nice as when hair-having people do it for each other?"

"No frame of reference," he mumbled happily into his arms.

"How do you _hear_?" she wondered.

"Complicated question. With my sinuses and jaw bones."

"Huh," she ran her thumbs over his sinuses and the joint of his jaw and temple, and that felt wonderful. "What possible connection is there between jaw bones and hearing?"

"You've never heard of an 'ear nose and throat doctor?' Look up _Theraspids_ some time, the big division between reptiles and mammals had to do with the evolution of the mammalian ear, not fur or mammaries or anything else. I have pretty good hearing, even under water, but I probably can't make out individual words from as far away as you can. I can probably make out individual voices from _farther_ , though."

"That's really neat." She placed her palms and fingers at the back of his neck, just under the shell, and leaned her weight onto them. _Pop_.

" _Kknnrrrrrkkrrrrr_..." The sound came out after a solid minute of repressing it, a deep and gravely throat sound, and he immediately regretted it because it was _so incredibly inhuman._ Made him sound like a stuttering crocodile or, hell, that croaking ghost girl from The Ring.

Wild lifted her hands reflexively and froze in place for a moment.

"Uh." Sandro tensed. "S-sorry, that was just a... relaxation sound. You've heard me hiss before, right?" She had, at the ice skating rink. He'd definitely made a few sounds close to a bellow or roar since then! "They're laryngeal noises, instead of vocal chord ones. I-I know they're weird. Sorry"

Wild remained silent up until she suddenly was silent no longer, as with great thunder she demanded: "Turtles can _purr_!?"

"... Well don't get Donnie started on the topic, he will rant for days on how ill documented and irreverent any research on the topic is, and that the closest applicable studies on reptilian laryngeal noises have all been done on crocodillians. It's like one of his top secret beefs with the universe: bad documentation of turtle vocalizations."

His counterpart was still having an epiphany, and couldn't hear a word he was saying as she clawed at the sky: "THIS. CHANGES. _EVERYTHING_."


	63. Reign Me In?

" _Neewww_ _M_ _ooommm!_ " Wildcard streaked through the house hollering at the top of her lungs, if only because Donnie appeared to be in the Lab and the Lab was apparently proofed to a very large number of decibels. Sandro shouted an annoyed 'Wildcard!' after her, but she ignored him.

"I heard my name!" a plucky Michelangelo didn't fail her in the slightest as he poked his head into one of the assorted rooms Wildcard had been a very good girl about not poking her nose in while trying to make a good impression on Donatello. She surmised this was _probably_ his bedroom. "What's wrong, Mini?"

Wildcard glomped him at the leg. "I've been deceived and lied to!" she wailed of the universe. "Years have been wasted!"

"Well this sounds tremendously serious!" Mikey laughed, hobbling one-legged out of his room and then leaning over to grab her up under the armpits and pick her up into both arms. "How has it happened!?"

"She's being an idiot!" Sandro droned from the living room as he limped along to try and join them

"Sandro can purr!" Wildcard announced. "Is it true? Is it actually a purr?! Can all turtles purr!? Has everyone been holding out on me!?" She failed her arms.

"He can _what_? Oh! Omigod," he peered around her towards Sandro, who had finally managed to enter line of sight of the hallway and looked incredibly clustered "she actually heard that scary _death_ _rattle_ and realized it was a happy sound!?" Mikey disbelieved. "It sounds like a terrifying Halloween movie, not like a kitten purring!"

Sandro gave a big shrug, as if saying 'What, you think she suddenly _makes sense_ and _acts normal_ all of a sudden?'

"Nuh-uh, it's like the bestest crocodile kitten! Can _you_ purr, too!? Does no one like me enough to feel content, relaxed, and/or happy in my presence!?"

"Hold up, gimme a sec!" Mikey cackled and hugged her and cleared his throat. "Okay, okay, okay, I've almost _never_ intentionally done this except to prank people, okay? Gimme a sec, I need to _think_ about it. Give me a few tries?"

"I'm _listening_ ," Wild pouted like a toddler, arms tight around his neck, because Mikey was a fantastic person to act like you were a quarter your age around; possibly because he'd eternally be acting like he was a quarter _his_ age.

"Hh... hhhhaaa ...Kk... _Kkkkknnrrrrrrrrnnnnrrrrrr_...!"

"Omiguuuudd, its even lower pitched...!" Wildcard chirruped delightedly and kicked her legs and melted into a plastron as an Orange Turtle nuzzled her hair and happy-rattled just for her. "Isssapppurrrr! Eeeeessoooocuuutte! Aaeei!"

Sandro covered his face and decided there was probably some itty bitty truth in advertising for Wildcard to refer to his Uncle Michelangelo as 'New Mom.' Oh well. Best she get it out of her system because Donnie came out of the lab, because if he got worked up in a rant about turtle sounds, there's be no end in sight, and Wild would definitely antagonize him, too.

* * *

Donatello was clearly worked-up when Michelangelo came into the lab to call him to lunch! He was fishing around in dozens of crates with the lids everywhere, which was probably unnecessary because Donnie used a database to keep track of where he stored things, on the off chance he actually _forgot_ any of it. (Donnie's memory was kinda crazy like that!) Michelangelo came up to have a look around, and found his brother surrounded by boxes and books, as if he was being super picky about something and waffling back and forth between fifty options.

"Whatcha lookin for?" Mikey chirped.

"Gah!" Donnie jumped. "Don't _do_ that!"

Michelangelo laughed and reached out to touch his brother's arm. Donnie brushed him off. Michelangelo hugged to his shell. "What's up?" Orange asked. "And don't say 'nothing,' bro, I can hear your pulse!

"Raphael. April. Everything!" Donatello sighed painfully. "I was just... sorting through tangible things I can use as evidence of progress: projects, kits, old school books... Never mind! I'm just _nervous_ , that's what it is! I'm scheduled for patrol tomorrow, and that's one less day we have to get ready by! Should I switch places with Leo? There are so many contingencies I still haven't thought of! To say nothing if he surprises her with the news in the middle of the week-!"

"Whoa, whoa!" Mikey let go of the shell to chafe his brothers shoulders and press thumbs into the tight muscles of his neck. "Donnie! Breathe, bro!"

"Stop- stop _touching_ me Mi-! Nggh. Mnn." His tension and resentful twitches slacked off, and he slumped backwards as Michelangelo homed in on supplying a neck massage. Mikey isolated each vertebrae, seeking any joint fixations between two caused by stiff or overtaxed muscles. There was one. He worried his thumb into a pressure point, easing his palms on either side of his brother's neck and head.

"Relax a sec, kay bro?" Donnie complied; Donnie was usually totally adorable putty in a person's hands any time the words 'neck' and 'chiropractic adjustment' ended up together! Too much time bent over computer screens could do that to a dork! _Crack._ "There! Better?"

"Hmmffll. Thank you," Purple Turtle begrudgingly mumbled.

"No problem, bro. And, hey! If you wanna give the kids something to play with that looks impressive and like it's a learning-thing, that's totally cool! But Sandro is leveling up at this talking to people thing, and I think he's racking up the self confidence more than you think. Yeah, Friday was a _total disaster_ on one count, but maybe it cracked open a few nuts and made some other stuff easier. And you are doing a _great job_ helping him! Okay? He even told you how much the practice helped!"

Donatello breathed in deep, and then let it all out a little despairingly. "I just wish I'd gotten to him faster. Before..."

"I think Raphie wishes you'd gotten their faster, too," Mikey mentioned delicately. "And Leo's hardcore blaming himself for basically _working_ while it was going on. I never noticed before, but from Sandro's perspective, Leo and April are similarly distant! You think maybe that's why he talked to Leo first? Like a practice run! Heh, and d'ya notice April kept doing this..." Mikey pointed at his own eyes with two fingers, and then glared at an imaginary Raphie and pointed at him, "thing to Raph when Sandro still wanted to spend time with him? I know I shouldn't be laughing, but I'm laughing."

Donnie smirked at that and nodded slightly.

"Have you noticed how _off_ Leo is lately?"

Donatello straightened and gave a tremendous eye-roll as he turned about to face Mikey. "Holy _Toledo_ has Leo been acting 'off.' It seems every time I turn around, he's doing something highly unusual that violates or exceeds my expectations. I keep wanting to shake him and ask what he's done with my brother; except that he's almost acting what I could believe my brother might actually be like, if my brother wasn't a _mute_ r _ecluse_. It's creeping me _out_."

Mikey laughed. "Why's it creeping you out!?"

"I'm not saying I don't _love_ it or find it fascinating, just that it doesn't seem to have any foundation in actual events! We talked to him, but only once, and we haven't even had any chance to even spend time with him outside of that!"

Michelangelo sobered. "It's _Mini_ , yo. You're the one who keeps sneaking up to watch her Ninjitsu lessons, so don't tell me you haven't _noticed_."

Donatello scratched his jaw thoughtfully. "It's definitely Wildcard," he admitted after a bit of thought. "I just can't figure out _how_ or _why_. Then again, it hasn't been particularly long since we met her, so if this pattern continues I suppose I'll have more data to ponder on."

"Well, like, I'm nearly positive Leo was watching over her even when Sandro wasn't out, back before we knew anything," Mikey offered. "And the way he behaved the first few days after meeting her was hella weird, to the point where _I_ confronted him on it." Donnie raised brows at him. "I know! I'm not even confrontational! Near as I can tell, he's not just training her cause she's friends with Sandro and, like, potentially would need to keep up with him in a fight one day or whatever. There's like some extra layer to it. Uh, if that makes any sense."

"Maybe it does. Something to keep an eye on, I suppose. Thanks for... calming _me_ down, by the way. Even if I will always find it _incredibly_ awkward how huggy you are."

"You haven't hugged me in weeks," Mikey disagreed with a leer. "And I got promised some kind of periodic disbursements of hugs, I remember!"

Donnie glared at him but then gave another eye-roll, and leaned over, and hugged him.

"Ddd'awww. You really did give me one?! I wuuvvv yoouuu Donnniieee...!" Mikey warbled.

"Ick," said the dork, but it was a really good hug anyway, and Mikey made absolutely sure not to accidentally 'purr,' hehe!

* * *

"Hey kids," Donatello called as he entered. "I wanted to show you something you might like working on as a joint 'science project. Especially since one of you is going to be somewhat limited with regards to exercise and roughhousing and those have been the primary methods by which I've seen the two of you play'

Sandro held up a palm to temporarily stall him. "Hold just a sec, I'm having a hit described."

 _A what?_ Donatello paused and looked between both children. Apparently even little She-Casey was of the opinion that this conversation was absurd: "Sandro, you can't kill random skater children for aggressively hitting on me. Even if they're much older than I am."

"I will tear off his arms and beat him to death with them," Sandro specified innocently.

"You can't even leave this _sewer_ ," she called his bluff.

But Sandro shrugged. "I'll keep a list."

"You are going to make a hit-list of boys to 'disarm' the day you hit fifteen or sixteen, or whenever? Hmm, I'm skeptical they will even remember these misdeeds by then."

"I'll remind em! _Creatively_."

"Before or _after_ you club them to death with their own arms?" Wildcard needed to know.

"I'll slip it there," he assured her with a crack of his knuckles. "Continue describing the perpetrator."

Wild shuttered her eyes at him a moment, wholly amused. Then she looked up at Donatello. "Clearly we need to save dressing him in red for special occasions and championship MMA fights, because it's gone straight to his head. Either that or he's _absolutely_ my older brother, and this is just stereotypical over protectiveness. It's a pity we don't have any other brother-sister pairings in the family to examine for comparison."

"Um. Maybe it _is_ a good time for me to interrupt," Donatello decided, settling down the box he was carrying and opening it up to reveal the large quantity of servo motors, screws, chips, cords, and metal framework inside.

"What _is_ it?" Wildcard wondered, as she and Sandro leaned over curiousity and poked at the components.

"An old kit I put together for a hexapod," Donatello explained.

"A what?"

"A six-legged robot. Just getting it to twitch would take you both a lot of work, and then getting it to stand up and walk would be another wave of fiddling all-together, but then you can hook it up to a remote control like any RC car. I have a folder of tips and instructions, and a USB with some programs and libraries packed in with it. Is it something that interests you?"

Sandro and Wildcard looked at one-another, eyes wide, and one could literally read their mutual realization that Wildcard was going to call this Fluffy the Attack Spider regardless of its leg count and/or lack of fur. They gave a nod, bumped elbows, jinxed each other with a simultaneous "Thank you Donnie!", shared a hi-fived, and then immediately dived the box and began pulling things out and asking all sorts of questions. Well, _Wildcard_ asked all sorts of questions, some clearly rhetorical and others nonsensical, while Sandro got the instructions out and began peering through the physical components of the whole thing like the motors and screws.

Donnie sat back on his heels and smiled. "I'll go get your laptop," he mentioned to Sandro, and went off to get some screwdrivers, thread-lock adhesive, battery banks, and the small portable soldering iron. Later on, perhaps he'd give Wildcard her very first Japanese lesson.

* * *

Sandro leaned on his crutch with both hands and hovered over his sister as she packed up for the day. Donatello's healing ointments were starting to kick in double-time, and between them, the ice packs, the compression wraps, and the acetaminophen, he really was starting to feel much better. But there was _another_ way in which he felt better, and he chewed over the words of how to describe it as she packed up her new Japanese textbook and her first assigned homework, and a couple printed notes about their 'science project' which Sandro had helped highlight parts of.

"Wild, I wanted to mention somethin to you that's kinda odd." he started. She blinked up at him. "S'about myself. When you're around, I think I act the tone of how I act changes. I'm not talking like how I repress my feelings when talking to mom or anything. Somethin almost more subtle than that, but it really feels differently in retrospect."

"Like how?" she prompted.

He tapped the top of the crutch thoughtfully. "I think when I talk to you, I act _independent_. Like a young adult, with certain... distinct and fully formed personality attributes and ideas about the world, who is just as tough as anybody else, if not tougher. You've called me _arrogant_ and rough-edged and _boisterous_ ,and I don't think anyone else in my family would ever describe me that way. But you're right, I feel and act very differently around you, _especially_ when my family isn't around. It feels like my personality is _bigger_ than I used to think. But when I'm around my mom and dad,I revert back in time. I act like a child, I rebel like a child, I _whine_ and tantrum and put on a sad face or get angry, and in general I just act like I'm much... _smaller_ than I am with you. As if I weren't my own person yet."

"You know, this sort of sounds familiar," Wild reflected with a tap at her chin. "Like I read a blog post or something on it once: Kids start building identities away from parents, who don't necessarily know about or approve of the changes, and there can be some trouble reconciling it all. But it's part of growing up, and apparently learning to let go is part of parenthood. Not that _I_ should be telling anybody that; It's not like _I_ turned out _great_."

"Pft. Won't use you as a reference, you can be sure of that. Look, I dunno what's gonna happen when everyone's gathered together for this big conversation on Friday," Sandro admitted. "Could be smooth as butter, or could snowball into a huge fight. But it just seriously freaked me out to suddenly realize I'm not even sure _who_ I'll be, exactly. What if I'm the child whining the age-old: 'But mooommm...!' On the other hand, what's she's going to think of the snarky boy who punches you in the face?"

Wildcard laughed and then drawled teasingly, "Well I get why you're scared: your mom might take issue if the very first display of your young adult traits is in standing up to her! But truth is you're very likable. You're charmingly mean but level-headed, you're passionate, you're super smart, you're really adaptable and can play off of witty banter, and you don't easily get indignant or intolerant. You make _good choices_ even if you don't exactly listen to the rules all the time, and you misbehave in an ethical fashion. Your mom _ought_ to learn to like you. What's not to like? That you're a little _flippant?_ Pfft."

Sandro smirked and thought on this. Then he said, "I've changed my mind about something. When you come on Friday, don't play the innocent, cute, quiet girl. Be my sister: annoying, low brow, super smart, armed to the teeth, athletic, a troublemaker, and a teeny tiny bit of a hero. My mom might not like you, but I wont have to waste a moment wondering who the hell _I_ am, and the person who ought to be most important to her is _me_ , not _you_. Just... try not to get nervous because you need to not take over the conversation and babble a million miles an hour."

Wildcard brightened up thoughtfully and then nodded. "When we started off, we didn't know how my dad was gonna feel about all this; Now that he's supportive, I think it takes a lot of pressure off of me to explain myself, cause dad will pick up the slack. How did you describe me to Raphael, by the way? Is there anything I shouldn't bring up when talking to them, that you're trying to downplay?"

"Basically told him you were an explosive little maniac who was slightly adorable but also threw knives at Foot. Haven't specifically told anyone you _killed_ them, mind ya, but I'm not gonna lie about it if it comes up. Just be advised it'll spook them a bit." He smirked, though. "For the longest time I was worried they'd only approve of someone who didn't set off a single warning bell, but the truth is you're not normal, you're irreplaceable. And 'dangerous,' but that's why you fit in. You aren't 'my April,' you're a lot closer to being 'my Casey,' and the truth is you're kinda 'my Mini-Mikey.'"

"D'awww." She preened. "Say, is Michelangelo dangerous in an actual fight?"

"Ohhhh yeah. Yup," Sandro laughed. "Doesn't fight fair, either, and it's kinda scary. Seen it _once_ and not from a great angle, but once was enough." As she stood to leave for the day, he reached out to her and tugged her back to him. "Hug me," he requested because he only had one arm available (the other was holding the crutch). She put her arms around his waist and shell, and he crushed her gently to him with his free arm and rested his chin on top of her head. "Love ya, Yang." He waited to see if he'd successfully trained her to say the word 'love' without needed to interject all kinds of nonsense, hooblah, and bad jokes to soothe her enormous ego and maintain her bombastic reputation.

His counterpart squeezed him. "Love ya, Yin."

Sandro grinned confidently to himself. _Booyakasha._ He touched his beak to the top of the head, and even though it was hardly even recognizable as a 'kiss' without some kind of 'muah' or pucker sound or anything else, it basically meant the same thing no matter what a person called it.

* * *

"Sooo," Joker drawled gently as his wayward child finally did manage to make it home for dinner. "How you feeling, squirt?"

Wildcard blinked at him as she hung up her coat, as if she really didn't know what he was talking about. "Oh! Oh the weekend. Oh boy, was I out of marbles. That was rough. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I put you through that and didn't seem to be able to stop myself. I couldn't _sleep._ "

"Well... apparently that runs in the family." He came out of the kitchen and up to her to ruffle her hair and hug her. "Be honest with me... On a scale of zero to ten, where ten is Joker and zero is Bat Turtle... exactly are you at?"

"In terms of mental stability? Gee, where on there do I _normally_ live? Seven? I'm pretty chill now, actually," she leaned back into her father. "I got to smother and tease and hug on him and everybody else for a bit... that... really leveled me out. And his reaction to seeing me was like a light switch from 'not okay' to 'going to be okay,' so that made me feel important and like I belonged there."

Joker didn't have comparative experiences or relationships like this in his own life by which to relate to her, but it seemed in some strange way he was vicariously learning about them and valuing them through her. She really appreciated that, and wanted to tell him more about her 'adventures' underground, even if she hadn't been going anywhere. He interrupted her thoughts, though: "You know, this might sound a little _crazy_ , so stop me if you feel _talked down to_ or anything... but would you like to see a psychiatrist for the purpose of prescribing some insomnia medication?"

"Oh. What? Madness! Seeking professional care for _mental problems!?_ Nonsense! Crazy gives me character!" Her father snickered, and she grinned and shrugged. "I kinda _like_ how little I sleep."

"Except for when your nerves are haywire and desperately need sleep?" Joker asked. "I'm not suggesting it as an every-day sort of thing unless that's what you're interested in; but it might be nice if you at least _had_ the option to obtain bed rest in times of high stress. It might improve your ability to make clinch decisions when other people—like your poor boyfriend—depend on you."

"He's not my boyfriend!"

"Uh-huh. Sure."

"Dad! I'm too young to date! That's like a fifteen-sixteen year old thing, eww!"

"Ten years of trying to set me up with every man, woman, and ambiguous adult entity we walk by, and the child thinks she is going to get out of me teasing her about her relationship with her male best friend? Oh no, no no no, that is never going to happen! I have all the teases ready, lined up over a period of _years,_ sorted, and labeled, and ready to go!"

Wildcard paused to think on this. "... Well if you've got any good ones, I promise to reuse them on Sandro's family in your honor."

Joker hummed and hugged her tightly. "S'good to have you back on ground-level, squirt. I worry about you, and interesting as your crazy self might be, you don't give me many options to make sure you stay _yourself,_ other than to follow you from a safe distance and cross my fingers."

"Man, like everything you just said, Dad, all of that? You gotta think that in reverse or something the next time you reach for green hairspray."

"Nnh! Don't I know it." He gave her a squeeze and went to go turn the television off. "It's the blind leading the blind some days, I'm afraid; and all I have is experience stubbing toes to advise you on. Oh and all the fun times of course, but those were sort of _mean._ You _should_ consider not being _too_ proud for insomnia pills, which I will absolutely be skeptical of and give my two cents about and tell any doctor off about if necessary, if you think it will give you a little _help._ "

"I'll... think about it," it didn't quite make her feel comfortable. Maybe because it drew to mind hilarious scenes of what her father would do to a therapist's faith in humanity if ever he was left alone with one. She just couldn't take such people _seriously._

"I guess I have some ulterior motives for seeing if I can get you to take some responsibility for your moods; you have been worrying me a lot over the past few years, and I suspect you'll continue to worry me till I'm old and gray. Though I do not begrudge the interest you've taken in Bat Turtle's martial arts lessons. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but _he_ seems to be able to reign you in like _I_ cannot. Sort of admirable."

Wildcard wrinkled her nose, and narrowed her eyes. _Reign me in?_

"Speaking of ninja turtles! If you're not tired, why don't you show off some of the dancing and/or martial arts moves you've been picking up. I need some exposure to this 'ninjitsu' so I know exactly when to eat popcorn and cheer and say 'that's my girl' during epic fight scenes in the future. Hopefully involving hilarious amounts of you skipping past all the serious kids shouting fantastically orchestrated puns."

Ha! Showing off was always something Wild could do! She gave two big thumbs up, and scrambled to clear a 'play' area.


	64. The Tuesday of Giants

_No one_ could have possibly predicted that Tuesday would have turned into a _contest of giants_. The day (or night, depending on how you were measuring it) started off ordinarily enough, with Wildcard showing up ahead of time for her lessons. Sandro was limping around without the use of a crutch already. Though Leo had forbidden him from practicing Ninjitsu that morning, he did allow Sandro to warm up with them and then watch him train 'Kinpōge-kun,' which by now appeared to have become Leo's exclusive moniker for her.

The lesson proceeded as 'normal,' with the exception that Wild was a little distracted and kept sticking out her tongue at him until it became clear Sandro wouldn't encourage her. It did strike Sandro, as he watched his sister and uncle interact, that Leo's strategy for handling unruly children had matured in recent years. Blue-Turtle had always been a firm but fair disciplinarian whom Sandro had striven to obey and impress, so now Sandro was ever-so-slightly jealous of the unlimited wellsprings of amused-looking _patience_ which Leo seemed to have developed overnight for Wildcard. Or perhaps not? Perhaps Leo had actually put a great deal of thought and feeling into deciding how to handle her, and taken into account both his conversations with Sandro and Donatello, and that was why he'd been so coldly indecisive about her at the start.

Who could blame him? Wildcard was a big job! She'd even successfully wheedled Leo into letting her train while wearing her full costume!

After an hour and a half of practice, but still long before breakfast, Leo cut practice short and told _Kinpōge-kun_ that he still owed her a lecture about events that had transpired on Friday. This was the first Sandro had heard much about the matter, but Wildcard very nearly played dumb, so Leo elaborated that she had—in a fit of impulsive temper—lobbed throwing knives straight at his face to bait a reaction.

"Oh I don't know if it was _in a temper_ ," Wild drawled. "And it turned out for the best! Maybe you _need_ to have knives lobbed at you at key dramatic intervals, ever think about that?"

That was how she ended up on the receiving end of one of the best lectures Sandro had ever heard Leonardo give—and Sandro had heard _a lot_ of lectures. Maybe he only liked this one because he wasn't on the receiving end? No, one of the key things about this lecture was that Leo was avoiding _platitudes,_ and that he was specifically avoiding language Wildcard like to flaunt defiance of. He very noticeably did not use the word 'disrespectful,' and did not even suggest that she'd done something _particularly_ wrong by throwing knives at her own sensei. Leo stayed _completely_ within the realm of things Wild ought to be able to understand.

He said things like this:

That attacking someone because one is angry or emotional is irresponsible and indefensible, and no better than what Raphael did to Sandro.  
That attacking someone, no matter their level of skill, is dangerous and always carries with it the risk of injury;  
Thus even in a training scenario, live weapons must be treated with respect,  
And that even using practice weapons or fists against someone who is unready or turned away is ignoble and unsafe.  
Ultimately, aiming for the face with live steel is not to happen even during clearly delineated friendly spars, and certainly not without warning,  
And that it is insufficient defense of one's actions to say 'I knew you'd catch the knives' as knives are still be thrown at a person's face, particularly when failure to catch them could have amounted in _death._

Now of course Leo didn't know that Wild could see the future, and therefore obviously wouldn't have killed him; but the fact that 'throwing knives at a person is a nasty thing to do unsolicited' came across loud and strong. So did chastisements of how she'd handled her frustration, which Sandro hadn't actually seen and wasn't sure he could comment on. For the remaining quarter of an hour, Leo lectured like this:

That acting out in a violent manner at friends and allies is not an acceptable way of dealing with one's frustration, even if one is afraid, and—again—is no more justifiable than attacking Sandro. (Sandro was not happy to be an example _twice_ , but then he'd rarely ever seen Wildcard _close_ to being angry, and knew she could do pretty stupid stuff.)  
It is not okay to take out one's anger on someone else.  
That using violence to provoke a 'rise' out of someone is not an acceptable way of enacting change in another person's behavior, and may have unintended consequences and damage relationships.  
That these are ultimately just ways of channeling out negative energy, which can be better disposed of by safer and less destructive means.  
That submitting to wild erratic impulses, as a way of feeling trapped, does not guarantee any positive change will be made and nearly ensures something negative will occur.  
That sometimes the answer IS to cultivate patience.

Though thirty minutes was a long time to listen to, and Wildcard looked as if she'd zoned out, Sandro reasoned most of her attitude was an act. Wildcard didn't struggle with attention problems, and Leo was being very clear and rather gentle. Her biggest issue was she liked to show contempt for authority, and she was showing plenty of it now.

"Have I been clear, _Kinpōge-kun_?" Leo asked, and Wildcard jumped as if she'd been knocked awake.

"Hai Senseeiii," she droned monotonously.

Leo eyed her doubtfully, but turned away. "Very well then, I believe-"

Sandro tensed as, to his utter disbelief (of course she would, of course), Wildcard tore a knife out of her armor, and flug it _straight_ at Leonardo's head. Leo stepped to the side so quick he might as well have teleported, and the metal passed his face and hit the wall of the dojo. He turned blue eyes onto her, face blank of expression.

Wildcard, oh Wildcard; she gave a sassy _wink_ , and turned herself about and go to get a bottle of water, as if she could just _do_ that and no one could say anything or stop her.

" _Hashi_ ," Leo uttered.

Sandro's heart had already been racing with all the adrenaline that had just caused, and now it redoubled its pace as Wildcard turned a confused blink back to Leo. "What?" she asked.

"To the exercise room. _Now_ _Kinpōge_ ," Leo said, striding up to her.

Whether she was slightly cowed from being loomed over by a person someone so much taller than she, or whether she was simply curious about what Leo meant, she did skirt around him and then hurry for the exit of the dojo. Leo followed at her heel, and Sandro scrambled to his feet to follow after them and figure out if Leo was _really_ going to put her in _Hashi_!

* * *

"Breakfast's not ready yet, dudes and dudettes!" Mikey called as he peered at them from the kitchen. Then he caught sight of Leo's face. "Whoa, what happened?"

Mini-meme scoffed and answered: "Someone can't take a joke!"

"Inside," Leo ordered, taking her shoulder and steering her into the room.

Mikey blinked after them in alarm, and then looked over and offered a hand to steady Sandro as the boy limped up to him and whispered an explanation: "He's putting her in _Hashi!_ "

Mikey gasped. "No!" And then, because they absolutely had to see this, he quickly helped Sandro limp inside.

From the storage cabinet, Leonardo procured a sturdy old wooden chair, and sat it in the middle of the floor, and from that Mikey realized Leo had the same _Hashi_ planned for her as their dad had used on Mikey.

"If you have forgotten, _Hashi_ means 'bridge,'" Leo told her, in a tone which brooked no argument as he left the chair and came back beside her. "It's a test of strength and endurance, and it is a punishment. Yours will last five minutes. For five minutes, you will do a handstand on the arms of the chair, with your elbows at a ninety-degree angle."

 _Pfft,_ thought Mikey. _Five minutes is nothing!_ But then Wildcard said a Word, _The_ _Word,_ which no turtle, not Raphael, not Mikey—not anyone!—had ever dared say to their own sensei:

"Nope!" she chirped.

Leo eyed her as if he'd expected exactly that.

Mikey and Sandro hadn't expected that at all, and looked at one-another because they were at a complete loss for what to do or feel about this. 'Nope' was not something you could say to _Hashi!_ Uh. But Mikey and his brothers had been taught to respect the fairness of this punishment by _Splinter_. Wild didn't have that background; and Hashi was something the punished person had to voluntarily participate in by actually _doing_ the exercise. There was no possible way to force her, and she wasn't their kid, so it wasn't like they could take her phone away or send her to her room. So what happened next? Leonardo wasn't Raphael—not even close—and he wasn't going to _scare_ her into doing it.

"Tell me, child," Leo said, "do you wish to continue your study of Ninjitsu?"

"Sure do!" Mini agreed blithely, smugly, as if she'd already won and knew it.

"I see. Then please specify your reasoning for why you ought to be allowed out of _Hashi_."

"I don't need to be allowed anywhere!" she said. "I don't see how you have any right or cause to make me do _anything_ I don't want to do, and I'm not going to _pretend_ to submit to a punishment to sate your ego about whether your lectures are useful instruments of instruction." (Yowch!) "I don't believe in discipline, and on top of it, I say I haven't even done anything wrong. What are you going to do? Hold me upside down for five minutes?"

"Thank you for expressing yourself so succinctly," Leo told her calmly. "I suspected something of this nature. Michelangelo will only be serving breakfast for two this morning."

"So what are you gonna do?" she teased. "Simply deny me breakfast? Or send me home? Maybe then I'll be late tomorrow."

"I said 'two,' not 'three,' _Kinpōge-kun_. Neither you nor I will be leaving this room until you have put in your five minutes of bridge exercises. You might starve to death before I do, but that is a risk you appear willing to take."

Her face screwed up more in amusement than anything else, and she went to leave. He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. Far from worried, she started sprinting for the door, worming away from him, trying to get around her legs, and every other means available of leaving the room. Leo prevented each and every one, and finally tossed her further back into the room. She picked herself up, crossed her arms, and leaned against the wall.

"This isn't going to go how you think it's going to go," she laughed with a gleam in her eye that was sorta scary. "I'm _way_ more mean and persistent than you are _invulnerable._ "

"Michelangelo," Leo said calmly as he gestured for Orange Turtle and Sandro to leave. "Make Pizza for lunch, and set a full pie of it in the hallway so we can smell it."

"For _lunch_?" Mikey asked. "Yo, that's hours away. Isn't that a little... long?"

"We'll see," was Leo's answer. "She would have us believe it will be _longer._ Please do not intervene; if she manages to leave this room without taking responsibility for the consequences of her actions, I will wipe my hands of teaching her."

"Maybe I'll just quit now and save us both the time!" Wildcard drawled.

"Get past me, then," Leo replied, "and you _may_."

* * *

Morning ticked by.

"Oh come on! Be a magic eight ball again! Tell me a platitude! Read my soul! Say _something!_ "

Leo did not.

Wildcard may have had a knack for knives, but the most powerful armament in her arsenal of tools was indisputably her larger-than-life personality. Her knives could be caught or deflected by a greater fighter, or outmatched by guns and bad timing, but her personality was a weapon that could topple threats much greater than herself even when she was trapped in a corner. She had an almost surreal way of whipping up and steering everything in a frenzy of energy around herself, and through this she could prevent many questions from ever reaching answers and simultaneously win over her audience through a combination of wit, enthusiasm, bafflegab, and charm.

But in order to employ this tool, Wildcard needed people to _interact_ with her. Through these interactions, she created momentum. She preferred having a full dialog she could subvert, invert, turn about, pivot off of, and keep herself airborne with; but she could make due in a pinch with facial expressions, which allowed her to read whomever she was talking to. She needed to annoy or startle, receive reactions, divert, hand-wave, tell a fantastic joke, and jump about from topic to topic. She needed some kind of _exchange._

Thus the only way to truly disarm her, and leave her in a state of awareness towards her own lack of power, was to _ignore_ her. Not fully and entirely; he of course had to stop her from injuring him, injuring herself, or rushing out of the room. But when it became necessary for him to _physically_ react, he had to deny her the satisfaction of any accompanying emotional reactions. He had to deny her the sight of any feelings at all.

Which Leo could.

He now had an unusual, front-row seat to a fast-paced, time-lapsed demonstration of how _cruel_ it was to refuse to speak to someone or acknowledge anything they said over a period of time; Whether she fielded jokes, complaints, or earnest requests for explanations, Leo remained silent. The result gave him eerie insight into what sort of hurt resentment Donatello and Michelangelo must have been amassing towards him. Yet still Leo _used_ that silence—used the dead silence of an unresponsive and bored audience—as a flamethrower to burn through her massive repertoire of humor faster than the little comedian had any idea it could be burnt.

"Oh my _god_ you're so _boring_...!"

* * *

Sandro and Michelangelo sat around the cold leftovers of their noon pizza, with the clock on the wall heading into the morning hours.

"Uh," Mikey asked. "So what do we do? Do we cut this off? Do we get her out?"

Sandro had been thinking exactly the same thing. On one hand, Wildcard had thrown a knife straight at Leo, and even though she'd technically known she'd miss, that kind of flagrant disrespect for her elders was exactly what was missing in her own relationship with her dad—only worse, because Leonardo was daring to tell her right from wrong and _expect obedience._ On the other hand, Wildcard's loathing for obedience was sort of integral to her character, and one of the reason Sandro had ever gotten to meet her or be rescued by her in the first place.

"We can't do anything," Sandro said, even though he was the child and Michelangelo was the adult. "We have to not intervene. This is between her and her Sensei."

"Yeah but, like... Leo's a _jerk_ sometimes," Mikey said. "Don't you think this is getting a little extreme? She's been trapped in a room with no food and water, immediately after exercise, for an entire day! With the most boring person in the world, no offense to Leo."

"That's her fault, not his," Sandro knew. "She's _testing_ him, Mikey. This isn't a small thing he's blowing out of proportion, she was very flagrantly telling him she was the alpha back there, and that's not a fight he can let her win. He _has_ to win, and nobody else has _ever_ won with her before, and that's why every single relationship with a worthy mentor in her life has either failed outright or else is screwed up and broken and doesn't do what it's supposed to do."

"Whoa, you really think that? Why?"

"Seen it happen," Sandro said, thinking of the saintly Ms. Jane. "No matter _what_ happens, you can't be on her side right now. For once—and I can't believe I'm the one saying this—we have to be on the side of what's _best_ for her. I don't even know how he _can_ win, but I still think he _has_ to."

Mikey sat back. "So what do you think they're talking about in there?"

"Ya know what? I will bet you a million-to-one that we don't know what to know," Sandro decided, because though he'd never had the misfortune of encountering an angry Wildcard, he'd seen flakes and hints of what it might have been like in the words and body language that had slipped out of her on the rare occasions he'd needed to hem her into a corner and tell her to be honest with him. "I'll bet it's ugly. And I bet the more desperate she gets, the uglier it's going to get, until she finally throws a temper tantrum to try and make it too awkward for him to keep her there. She doesn't know how to _lose._ "

* * *

It was probably best neither of them went to check.

Leo squatted before the exit, passively blocking it. The archway was now dotted with thrown knives, and the floor was covered in a fresh scattering of them. Before him knelt his snarling, vicious, student, as she mocked him with seiza pose but lashed out again and again and again, with words dripping wicked poison.

"What misdirected sense of entitlement even makes you think you're any replacement for your dead father? You can't even figure out how to talk to your own _siblings_ after being together with them for thirty years, and you think you have any right to tell someone else's child how to behave? You lock up and _eat_ your emotions because you're too weak to admit you have no idea what to do and ask for help; you couldn't even successfully explain serious emergency, and pretended you could hand wave it away and I'd just forget about it, instead of realizing I needed to know a lot of relevant information so that I could comfort a young boy after he was _beaten_ by his own father."

Leo just watched her quietly, this wicked, violent little creature whom he had taken into his dojo, whom had no filter, no sense for what might be 'off limits,' and no mercy. He did not respond, because he knew she was not currently talking; she was _biting._

"You think I should respect _you?_ That you deserve anyone's respect at all? That just because _you've_ said so, and because you can fight pretty with swords, that I should kowtow and accept your beliefs towards correct behavior? That you—who can't even figure out the 'correct' way to talk to your own nephew—have any right to judge me 'inappropriate' or 'wrong' if I lash out at your patronizing, emotionally handicapped face to get you to talk to me? I don't think you have a _fucking clue_ what the reality of behavior or emotions is, and I think that when it comes to pandering zen wisdom, you're as much a _fraud_ as a Chinese Fortune Cookie."

* * *

An hour before Wild ought to have left for home, Sandro went and found her phone. He dialed her father, and waited nervously. After a few rings, he heard a click.

"Hey squirt, what's up?"

"Hey, Mr. Hamilton. Do you remember me?" the littlest turtle greeted.

"Sandro, of _course_! To what do I owe the occasion? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's _wrong_ exactly," Sandro said. "Did you know that my Uncle Leonardo has been training Wildcard in Ninjitsu?"

"I did. I thought it was a good idea, but then I'm the one who put her in Aikido, and you see how that turned out..."

"Well, sir, I need your opinion on something. About eight hours ago, my uncle gave her a very reasonable lecture, and—after rolling her eyes and entirely ignoring him—she threw a knife at his face, gave a sassy wink, and tried to saunter off."

"I see." Mr. Hamilton could be heard to start eating popcorn, or at least that's what it sounded like. "Do go on."

"Well, he decided to put her through this punishment we respect in our family which is all about strength-training and endurance, where basically she'd just have to do a handstand for five minutes and all would be forgiven. But she refused and said she didn't recognize his right to discipline her. Now it's been eighthours where he's been quietly guarding the exit out of that room, and neither of them have eaten or even gone to the bathroom. She's gone to some tremendously manipulative lengths to try and get out. And, um, I know she's supposed to come home, but... I _kinda_ really wanna see who wins. Like, _really._ "

Mr. Hamilton continued eating popcorn for a moment. "Let me get this straight: _Your uncle_ is trying to get _my daughter_ to be responsible for the consequences of her actions?"

"Yes sir, that's about the size of it. If you really think I ought to rescue her, I can do that."

"Oh my _goodness,_ no! _No!_ Full Speed Ahead! Don't you _dare_ tell her I approve of the methodology either, she'd skin me alive! Ooh-ooh! Call me to tell me who breaks first! I'll make the winner cookies! _This is so exciting!_ "

"I-I will! Thanks Mr. Hamilton!" _Yes!_ "Can she have 'permission to sleep over,' basically, then?"

"Yes! H-hey! Before you go! Sandro!"

"Yes?"

"Um, there might have been an incident recently which you should know about. _I messed something up._ "

Sandro blinked. "Messed what up?"

"Well, how do I put it? _Raphael_ came to _my bar_ on I may have, um, _slipped_ _something_ out of concern for my baby girl. I tried to play it off, and we didn't talk long, but I did mention words like 'vigilante' and told him you'd meant to talk to April. It was nearly closing hour, and he definitely looked like he wanted to be alone with his thoughts for a bit. After the 'he almost jumped me over the bar and killed me in a paranoid, psychotic, overprotective-of-his-family rage' bit, of course, but I'm used to that!"

Sandro remained frozen for a moment. _Dad knew?_ he realized. _He knew, and he didn't tell mom? Didn't storm home yelling? Or get in a fight? And found out from a complete stranger. AND MET WILD'S DAD?! And the universe didn't implode? And he didn't even tell *me* when I was talking about her!?_ This was going to take some thinking about to figure out.

"Um. Mr. Hamilton, if this sounds crazy then just say so," Sandro hazarded. "But down the line, would you maybe like to _meet_ my parents or something? Like normal parents sorta could? Except completely abnormal, since one of my parents is a giant turtle and all, who can't really go out easily... And you're, well, _you_."

Mr. Hamilton apparently really had to think about that, which was totally understandable given that he was apparently a retired mass-murdering clown talking to the son of a family of super-heroic ninjas. "You know, that might actually be nice..."

Sandro perked up and smiled. "Well awesome job not getting murdered by my dad, by the way, since he sometimes has the affect on people. As then Wildcard really _would_ have done way worse than put hot sauce in his jelly and hide all his left socks."

Mr. Hamilton _laughed._

* * *

Around the time Wildcard ought to have left, a loud cry came up from the exercise room. Sandro and Michelangelo, who had been playing video games all day and just gotten through the solid first three quarters a brand new Mario game, paused. Michelangelo paused the game so they could hear better, and then they realized they were hearing absolutely god-awful bawling.

"MIKKKEEEYYY!" Wild slipped in. "SAVVEEE MEEE!"

Sandro tackled his uncle, because Michelangelo nearly leaped over the couch to obey.

"She's FAKING!" Sandro said. "I KNOW her! TRUST me!"

"My child is crying for meee...!" Mikey wailed, trying to wiggle free. "I must go to heerrr...!"

"NO! Listen to me! LISTEN TO ME, Ah've only got one leg!" He grabbed Mikey's face. "As of right now she's da enemy! She's her OWN enemy! She's the most manipulative person on the whole fuckin' planet! She is tryin ta control him! She has an insanely easy way ta get out—she's in no danger at all!—and she won't do it cause it'd be admittin she ain't _dominant!_ " Sandro shouted. "Get to the Jute Box, and, and blast music so we can't hear her!"

"MIKKKKEEEYYYYYYYYYYY SANNNDRROOOO!"

Mikey squeezed his eyes and fists tightly shut and then bobbed his head rapidly, and bolted off the couch to get to the Jute Box.

They decided they'd be ordering a second round of pizza for dinner, and Sandro was almost too distracted being energized and twitchy about this whole _Hashi_ thing to realize they'd ordered Gino's and that Mikey might be getting a chance to see Mikey's crush. But that's what Wild had said, right? That Mikey had a crush on the Gino's Pizza Lady? Aww. Hopefully that gave Mikey something to think about other than Wildcard's cries for rescue.

"I'm sorry," he whispered in his sister's general direction. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...!"

* * *

Wildcard screamed for an hour solid, until clearly it became obvious both that Sandro and MIkey were onto her and that Leo would not be swayed by any level of hysteria. Sandro didn't dare to imagine what else she tried. Bringing up Karai? Threatening to call her father? Aggressive flirting? Reciting questionable fanfiction? Sandro turned down the Jute Box again, even though he hoped not to overhear anything else.

When Donatello got home for patrol he took off his Jika-Tabi, and then blinked at the realization that Wildcard's shoes were still by the door. "Is she still here?" Purple Turtle asked, alarmed by all the things that could have possibly gone wrong while he was not present. "Please tell me we're not having another sleep-over?"

"She's in Hashi," Mikey said quietly as he settled down a pizza pie before Donnie's chair. "We ordered out for dinner.

" _Hashi_?" Donnie asked. "She should have left _hours_ ago, what's going on?"

"She's been in there since this morning," Sandro said. "I just put a fresh pizza out so she can smell it. Leo said five minutes of bridge exercise; Wild said no. It's been a marathon death match ever since and I've forbidden us from checking up on her."

" _You've_ forbidden us?" Donnie wondered, baffled.

"One of her techniques for escaping was to start crying, and when that didn't phase Leo in the slightest, she started screaming for me and Mikey," Sandro said. "If you go in there, she will get you to get her out. _Don't do it._ She's _devious._ I already called her father for permission for her to stay here for the night."

Donatello put his hands on his hips. "I'm as much for respecting reasonable rules as anyone, but why the devil are we given so much benefit of the doubt to-" His eyes widened. "You called _whom_?"

"I'll tell you what," Sandro yawned. "Me and Mikey will both come clean to you about how we've met her dad in person, in exchange for you letting us know how your day went and _not_ going in there to check on them." Donatello stiffened in horror. "Hey, her dad's nice. He packed me lunches and even helped Mikey with the drag prank."

"And gave me a recipe for quiche!" Mikey agreed, because food was love.

* * *

Kinpōge, who had spoken, shouted, physically fought, screamed, scathed, make accusations of child abuse, cussed, shouted obscene sexual things, dug for weak scales, spat, hissed, and even physically induced herself to vomit, had finally gone silent after eight hours of solid, unending, wildly bipolar fury, staring angrily into the floor as she tried to rack her brain for what to do next. It was ambiguous as to whether she was looking for ways to _escape_ or ways to upset him. The room was upended, with weights and bands and ice packs everywhere. Vomit went unattended to in a puddle off to the side. The chair had been upended, but was unharmed; she could easily at any moment choose to use it.

Leo opened his eyes and peered quietly at her.

"Kinpōge-kun," he broke his silence. She twitched a little, proof that his acknowledgement of her meant more than she'd admit. "We should talk about the severity of your reaction to losing an argument."

She laughed bitterly. "So _now_ you want to talk?"

"As your teacher, I had an obligation to wait for you to be ready to listen, without taking your temper-tantrum seriously."

At that she lifted her head, an ugly sneer contorting the angular planes of her face. "I already _quit_ , you patronizing cunt."

"I also have an obligation not to give up on you so easily as that. Do you believe you deserve to be right even when you are wrong? Humor me this one conversation, Kinpōge-kun," Leo murmured. "If I cannot earn your respect within the next fifteen to twenty minutes, I will stand aside and allow you to quit Ninjitsu, depart this chamber, and eat very poorly selected delivery pizza. You will never have to speak with me again."

Her eyes narrowed and her jaws tightened.

Leo inspected her face before continuing. "Discipline is the belief that some things are worth committing to, Kinpōge. Respect is the belief that what someone has to teach you is valuable. There are many punishments in the world, from spankings to confiscated electronics, but most of them are _done onto_ the punished. This is _not._ The point of _Hashi_ lies in the strength of the relationship between the teacher and the student. In the acceptance of the authority because the student _trusts_ the teacher to know better than themselves and lead them. To suggest I have no right to punish you is to say I have no wisdom to give you. If that is the case, Kinpōge-kun, then I _should_ be reviled for permitting myself to be called a 'sensei', and _should_ be disqualified from teaching you, and _you should quit_."

She leaned forward. "Just because you can sword-fight does not make you some god. I do _not_ think you are always right. I will _not_ listen to whatever you say. And I will not give you the authority to decide anything for me. And you just trapped me in a room... and refused to speak to me... _FOR AN ENTIRE FUCKING DAY!_ "

"You had a very easy, five-minute way out, and you knew that. Weeks ago, when I spoke to you of what I had gleaned about you in my observations, and your fears of insanity, you reacted very strongly, as if my words had touched your heart. You behave like someone who does believe in the difference between right and wrong, and who wishes to tame some of her own instabilities so that she can avoid blurring the line between the two, make a bid at heroism, and feel like she has earned her friends and her place. And to this end you seem to have accepted my help and tutelage, _despite_ the clear issues you have with me in many areas."

A hesitant frown came upon her.

"Kinpōge, when I requested your name as a symbol of commitment, it was because asking to be part of someone's family—but then giving them no guarantee you will remain with them in times of hardship or dispute, no _loyalty_ —is cruel." Her eyes widened. "I was asking for your lessons to mean something to you, so that you would not throw them away one day simply because they had conflicted with your whimsy. It seems you are accustomed to getting your way in nearly everything, and I will not seek to ascribe blame; only to note that you will go to great and even damning lengths to extend that status quo, to the extent where you are willing to throw away anything that will not yield to you... and any _one_.

"I wonder if this because you fear that surrendering to any guidance whatsoever is a surrender of yourself and your intrinsic color—your uniqueness. Perhaps you fear walking through doors at the expense of leaving others unopened. Perhaps you do not know yourself, or possess strong judgement of your own, but do not want to stand by while others decide in your stead. Still, you cannot avoid growing, so you may wish to give some thought to whom you admire—or at least, whom you can trust to be consistent and to maintain a consistent bias—whom you believe will give you reasonable opinions on what doors are decent and which ones are iffy. Even if you do not always agree, that someone will give you a measure to understand yourself by, and anchor to return to should ever you dislike an ill-fated exploration in some other direction. And you have many choices; Orange is one of them."

The child stared at him; After all she had said and done, this was not what she had expected to hear. "Stop it." Her hands balled into fists. "Why aren't you even angry?" she asked. "You _ought_ to be angry. You ought to be a lot worse than angry."

"You presume I did not know exactly what would happen if I challenged _your '_ authority,'" Leo remarked. "Particularly after glimpsing it the day Sandro was injured. You are incredibly sharp, extremely strong-willed, perceptive, and utterly ruthless. Do you think I expected you to capitulate without giving me the fight of your life?" _As if I had never seen that before in anyone else. As if I could not possibly understand._ "But I am seventeen years your senior, and I weigh a great deal more than you do, and I do not have to eat as frequently. Or pee. And I think everyone will agree in a contest of sitting in one place doing nothing for hours, a _turtle_ has a decided advantage."

It seemed the _joke_ , of all things, was what finally hit her. Her expression started twitching, and she began to tremble like she had when he'd planted her on the ground in the sewers. It was then that he realized she had already decided she'd go so far as to be unforgivable if it meant escaping, and so she had done everything unforgivable she could think of. If she never had to talk to him again, anything was justifiable. Now, because he had not severed the relationship, she was being faced with psychological backwash in which own all of those wicked things cam back to her to live as part of her actual real self, as things she had done, and she _did not want them_ and did not know what to do with them.

Recognizing one fit was over and another had begun, Leonardo stood. He came over beside her at the far end of the room, under the Kanji for _family_ etched into the wall. "Child," he called down to her, for she was staring disbelieving at her shaking hands. "You must make a lasting decision about how much faith you have in me." He sat beside her, and leaned into the wall. "Ask yourself if you believe I intend to break your spirit, or if I can be trusted to help you better understand it. Ask if you are more than just the instinct to _subvert;_ if you are instead a human girl, with your strengths, and your weaknesses, and problems and needs, in need of help; the same as anyone. Ask not whether I am perfect, for I am surely not; Ask what it is you wish for me to teach you, that you find so valuable as to be worth tolerating my poor sense of humor."

She looked up at him slowly, frightened by herself. "I tried to break everything," she mumbled.

Leo looked at her: this scrappy, green-eyed wild-child, who at times truly believed she had to be strong enough to take on the entire world alone. "I did not let you."

* * *

Dinner was long finished, and uneaten pies were cold, when the family heard footsteps coming down the hall. They twisted about in surprise, dread, and anticipation. Both Wildcard and Leonardo had returned to them, the former looking incredibly subdued, and the latter appearing _calm_ more than anything. "I don't suppose anything _warm_ is left of this atrociously inauthentic pizza?" Blue Turtle inquired.

"Well what happened!?" Mikey blurt, getting up from his side of the table to see what had become of his poor little Mini. "Did she do it!?"

"She did," Leo said, not as if he was smug but rather as if vicariously proud. Sandro and Mikey both let out breaths they'd been holding.

"Can I have some pizza?" Wildcard asked Michelangelo in a very small voice. "I'm hungry."

"Oh thank _Splinter_ , you're still talking. Of _course!_ I kept one in the oven for you," Mikey told her as he leaned over to touch her cheek and make sure she looked okay. "But not for _him_ , he has to eat his _cold_."

"I was kinda being the poopy head of this scenario," she admitted sadly.

"Well... you're still getting the hot pizza because it's the veggie one, and also I love you the mostest," Mikey insisted, and then pulled her close and smooched her loudly upon the top of the head, to Donatello's disbelieving scowl that he'd say 'love' to a non-related child. Mikey took an oven mitt and fetched that pizza and got it onto a plate for her. "Here we go." He eased the plate into her hands. "One margarita veggie supreme! It was the closest I could get."

"It's perfect. Say, can you maybe heat up Sensei's pizza just a bit? I mean, think about it: If he tries to do it himself he'll start a fire. Donnie will have to fix the oven... it'll be a disaster."

"What! He didn't brainwash you did he?" She shook her head innocently. "Oh okay, good. I guess I can throw the pie in the microwave for him, then. Sound fair?"

Wildcard bit into her pizza prior to even breaking it into pieces; She'd just picked up the whole thing up sideways and nommed headlong into the crust facing up. The taste seemed to revitalize her. "Yes, Mom," she chirped cheerfully through a mouthful of food.

In Japanese, Donnie asked: " _You spent ten hours to get her to do five minutes of Hashi_?"

" _No,_ " Leo scoffed as he went to the refrigerator to obtain a pitcher of purified water and to pour his student a glass to ensure she hydrated herself. " _That would have been an atrocious waste of my time._ _"_


	65. Movie Night!

It was only a single hour past dawn and not particularly late into the turtles 'evening,' so Donatello asked Wildcard if she wanted one of them to take her home. It was clear she'd been through an emotionally draining day, and no one knew whether they ought to get her away from Leo for a bit. No one was entirely sure _what_ Leo had _done_ to her, even; only that she was being unusually quiet.

"You can stay," Sandro interjected hesitantly. "I got permission for you from your dad."

Well, as any child who'd ever been allowed to spend the night over a friend's or favorite cousin's house could testify, once that 'sleepover' permission had been obtained, then _by god_ a sleepover was going to happen! Wildcard told them she'd like to crash on their couch—if that was okay with Donnie, of course. And, goodness, she was so _tiny_ without her normal volume level that Donatello agreed immediately.

Then sat back, crossed his arms, and tried to figure his family out.

Given the wide-open choice of seats at the table, Wildcard had picked the one snug next to Leo. Mikey, who had also been _unusually quiet_ that evening, and who was washing the dishes without being told to, glanced back at her a few times as if unobtrusively checking on her. Leonardo quietly ate his pizza, and refilled Wildcard's glass of water when she emptied it. Sandro seemed incredibly shy and made no effort to speak with her.

Donatello frowned from each of them till at last his gaze came back to Wildcard. At first he couldn't put his thumb on exactly why her choice of seat made an unpleasant form of sense. She glanced up at Leo at least a dozen times, and it slowly dawned on Donatello that she was exhibiting the _classic_ 'reference-seeking' behaviors of a much younger child. She looked exactly like a six-year-old who had done something wrong, been fairly punished by a 'parent,' and—instead of going to someone _else_ for comfort—was repeatedly seeking small reassurances from specifically _that_ _parent_ that everything was forgiven and normal again.

Not only was that extraordinarily abnormal for a fourteen-year-old, it was also not supposed to happen outside of strong family relationships. Even Michelangelo seemed cognizant something was awry, though he looked more sympathetic than estranged. Meanwhile, Sandro was probably wondering why his best friend hadn't sat near _him_ , and if that meant he was in some kind of trouble with her. And Leo, as usual, looked _oblivious._ Donatello frowned, enumerating the things about this evening which were starting to add up to a problematic direction which _he_ would clearly need to address at some point in the future.

* * *

Donatello was underestimating Sandro, who knew exactly why his sister needed a few minutes to soak in whatever small attention Leo knew how to give her. Clearly some intense bonding thing had just happened, and even though Leo didn't possess enough affectionate instinct to so much as _pat her on the head_ , the way he was policing her cup served as some kind of surrogate method by which he successfully did convey he cared.

The fact that two of his family members looked to be forming strong, meaningful relationships with her, ones that addressed gaping holes in her psychological development _and_ simultaneously made them happier, was everything Sandro might have hoped for. She was his sister, and that made his family her family, and he'd already agreed to that. Plus, the more they loved her, the less likely it was he'd ever be separated from her.

And what was so terrible about that?

None of them were normal. All four original brothers had been adopted by a rat, and had very obviously different body types, facial structures, eye colors, and skin colors. Their 'family' was a rich patchwork of people and mutants scattered about North America, Western Europe, and Japan. And sometimes Africa, depending on where the hell Mom's uncle Artie was on a given day. Simultaneously, they were incredibly isolated; and despite living above ground, Wildcard knew exactly what the felt like. She was just as lonely and bizarre as any of them, and she fit right in exactly where she was: eating the pizza which Mikey had lovingly kept warm for her, whilst accidentally causing Leo to be a person again.

Didn't mean Sandro wasn't worried about her. Leo had just gotten her to _yield_ and accept a punishment for something... ... Nobody had ever successfully done that for her before, not really even her own father.

After her second glass of water, Wildcard suddenly got up. "I have to go to the bathroom," she realized and hurried away.

Leo glanced after her. "She needs to drink more water," he told Sandro matter-of-factly, because apparently Donnie was too busy processing something else to notice. "It should not have taken her thirty-two ounces to need to use the bathroom."

"Uh. I'm gonna wait for her to be done, but still go check on her," Sandro excused himself politely, and leaned heavily on the table to push himself upright without hurting his knee.

* * *

Sandro waited until he heard the flush and then the sink turn on, and then rapped on the door he'd been leaning against. "Pants on?" he inquired.

"Oh. Yup, not imitating Mikey this time around!" He opened the door so as not to risk his uncles overhearing them in the hallway, and came straight up to her where she stood at their sink.

"Are you _okay?"_ he asked, reaching out to grab her shoulders. She tensed up, looked away, and closed her eyes so suddenly that he knew to release her and quickly step back a pace so as not to make her feel trapped. He put three feet of space between the two of them. " _Wild_?" His voice cracked.

His companion took in a deep breath, one hand flat against where her pocket would have been on her hoodie. She breathed out, and then quickly crossed the space between them and aggressively latched her arms around his waist.

Still he needed instruction. _Permission._ "Can I-?"

" _Tightly."_

He wrapped both arms around her and crushed her to himself. "I woulda been there in a heartbeat if ya'd really needed me," he growled into her hair, and ran his nails through it. "I swear it. I just fuckin' _knew_ ya. If I thought fa one second ya'd really needed me, I'd a been dere."

She nodded into the tight clasp of him. "I just need a super high quality hug right now."

He breathed deep, and went to kneel to seize her about her hips and pick her off her feet-

Wildcard burst out laughing and Sandro burst out cussing like a sailor, as reality hit him like a hammer and he was forced to realize how _bad_ an idea this had just been. She kicked out to steady them both against the sink cabinet, and he grabbed the counter-top to keep himself from crumbling or falling over, and then he held his beak tightly together as he mind-over-mattered through the pain.

"Bad knee!" she cackled, her arms now tight around his neck. "You have a bad _knee_!"

"I have a bad _hip_ , too," he moaned, holding her aloft with one forearm tight about the small of her back. Honestly _she_ was probably doing most of the work of keeping herself off the ground right now. "Holy _shit_ , I'm _stupid_."

"Why'd you go through with it after it started hurting!?" she snickered.

"Well I couldn't just pussy out and _drop_ you and _fall over!_ " he groaned, keeping all of his weight upon his good leg until the bad one stopped throbbing. "Nngh. It's okay. It's just _swollen_ , I didn't pull or break anything." He blinked up at her and then smirked. "And _say_ , look at _you_. Why, I do believe you're suddenly _taller_ than me."

"Gasp!" She looked about excitedly, particularly at the mirror. "It's true! It's so different! I think I can see my house from here! What magic is this?!"

He laughed and stood mostly on one leg as he let go of the counter-top and got his other arm around her. "Magic would be me somehow successfully spinning you about, which my leg has just advised me would be an absolutely _terrible_ idea."

"Oh, no worries, I think you've fixed me regardless." She looked back to him and then smirked and said, "You are a wonderful person, Yin. You know that?" Sandro blushed scarlet, looked away, and cleared his throat. His Yang giggled and leaned in to rest her forehead against his temple, and he turned his cheek into hers and closed his eyes for a bit.

* * *

The conspicuous way Leonardo was inspecting the couch, almost as if he had forgotten how to operate it and was sorting through ancient memories for some clue about the rituals and rites couches involved, suggested that something interesting was afoot. He looked from the couch... to the television... and back again. Sandro and Wildcard waited patiently, and didn't rush him. He did not let them down.

"If we are conducting a sleepover," the family's Master Ninja pondered aloud, "should it not involve some form of family movie marathon?"

"Movie Night!" Michelangelo popped sideways out of the kitchen to exclaim, before Donatello could possibly get a word in edgewise. "O.M.G. I have had a hankering for Disney _all day_! How does chips and salsa sound? Dudes? Dudettes? We got anyone allergic to spicy?" Wildcard rapidly shook her head. "Woot!" He de-popped back into the kitchen and promptly stirred up a whirlwind.

"Let me think if we have anything _new_ that's Disney," Donatello mused as he pulled out a phone, accessed his computer, and flicked through his library. "There's the Live Actions. Beauty and the Beast just came out on Blue Ray. It's auto-tuned as all get-out but I'll stomach it." Donnie was a bit of an audiophile.

No sooner had the suggestion left his mouth however that Wildcard and Michelangelo both spun to look at one another and burst out with a synchronized ~Tale as Old as Timmmmee!~ while in the background somewhere Sandro moaned something dutifully boyish along the lines of, 'Why a _romance_?'

Donnie sighed. "Okay, let me restate that: I will only watch this movie with you all if _nobody sings along_."

"Awww!" Mikey pouted as he came out of the kitchen balancing a massive bowl of chips. Wildcard took one of those chips, dipped it, bit it, and then promptly double dipped. Mikey squealed a high-pitched gasp, and then took a chip and triple-dipped. Donatello gaped at them in disgust. Then he took a chip, dipped it, bit off all three corners, and dipped each and every single one of them back in the salsa. Bam: Quadruple-dipped. Mikey and Wild both reeled in astonishment at his mastery of the disgusting, and then gave him a hi-five/three. Sandro slapped a hand over his face and said something about romance clearly being necessary to balance out the room full of boys.

Meanwhile Leo was still relearning couches over there, and smoothed out his clothing neatly before gracefully taking a seat directly in the middle of the center cushion. Mikey and Donatello paused, glanced at one another, and then bumped elbows. Mikey already had the chips; Donatello grabbed the remote, Orange vaulted over the couch to land on his shellon the right and Purple rounded it from the left and shoved himself back over the arm rest, and two turtles crashed into Leo almost simultaneously to prevent him from escaping and steal him as their makeshift couch cushion, with their legs up over the armrests as they kicked all the actual cushions off the couch.

Leo blinked to the left at one, and then to the right at the other, and then sighed heavily. Yes, it was all coming back to him now, this 'couch' thing...

"Kids!" Donnie called with a big cat-like grin on his face, as both children stared after their elders in bafflement.

"We're doing Movie Night the Old Fashioned way!" Mikey hooted.

Wildcard looked to Sandro, who shrugged dramatically to let her know he hadn't seen this before, and then both children hurried up to enjoy the situation. Sandro would have _naively_ selected the arm chair, but Wildcard—ah, Wildcard—she looked for where a _forth_ turtle could possibly fit into this configuration and still leave it symmetrical. The only possible place was on the ground, sitting between both younger brothers and presumably either up against the eldest's legs or else between his knees to use them as arm-rests in the same basic thematic way by which the other two were using him as headrests. So she sat herself down on the floor beside Mikey and one of Leo's legs and, naturally, to rectify this now lopsided situation, Sandro immediately sat down beside Donnie on Leo's other side.

There. _Perfect._

* * *

The sheer quantity of accidental humming and singing (or not so accidental) that went on during the main songs of this movie was so heart-warming that Wildcard wanted to enroll in voice lessons, and she didn't join in so she could listen to them. _All three turtles—_ Leo and Donnie both included! _—_ seemed to know every single word, sounded spectacular, and listened to the new songs very attentively.

Mikey was definitely the worst culprit at singing/talking during the movie, and Donnie repeatedly hushed him across Leo's lap, and it was incredibly the adorable the way Orange whispered: 'Noooo!' and 'Don't do it...!' during parts, as if he didn't know exactly how it was all going to end.

"That was sooo gooood!" Mikey drawled teary-eyed as the credits scenes rolled. He started to sing along to 'Tale as Old as Time,' while Leo lightly moved one hand in time with the music (apparently subconsciously), and Donatello scanned his phone for the next movie they could watch on their Disney Marathon night. Sandro insisted 'not another romance!' and crawled off to go get one of those couch cushions to put under his sore tail. He offered another one to Wild just for basic comfort's sake.

"Ya know the ending of Beauty and the Beast always bothered me," Wild remarked casually. Then she straightened up in alarm, because everybody had gone abruptly silent. She turned to find four turtles staring at her, and realized that the ending was unabashedly their favorite part. Even Sandro's.

"Are you kidding!?" Mikey demanded. "It's a massive magic firework show and he gets the girl and everyone gets to be human again and now he's a handsome prince and she marries him and they live happily ever after!"

"W-well yeah!" Wildcard fumbled to explain herself under such scrutiny. "I guess that's what they wanted, but—come on! Beast was _way_ cooler as a badass giant horned demon wolf monster! When he turns human, he's not even physically recognizableas the guy she fell in love with! Who cares that he's suddenly 'handsome?' Gaston was 'handsome.' And then, when the movie ends, all the magic is _gone_ and we're left with a generic, boring, attractive, rich couple."

Donnie visibly thought about her objections. "You should read the Hero with a Thousand Faces," he suggested. "It explains adventure story formulas as a trip from the safety of the regular world into a land of larger-than-life import, often underscored by fantasy. But the resolution of a tale brings the hero back to normal life, wiser, changed in some way, but basically safe. Resting, if you will. I mean, after all, whose to say Belle and her new husband didn't live an interesting life after the story's conclusion? Or that this 'curse' was the only magic existing in this world?"

Leo and Mikey looked quickly from Wildcard to Donatello, and stared at him as if baffled someone so smart could be so dense. "What?" Purple Turtle asked. "What did I miss?"

"Duuuuuddee," Mikey murmured. "She just said she thinks the story would be better if the giant monster guy stayed a giant monster guy and that he doesn't need to turn normal for it to be a good romance."

And then it dawned on Wildcard suddenly why they'd all acted so strangely, because _they_ were giant monster guys, and this was a fantasy all of them shared: the fantasy of _becoming normal_. Her face heated up a little. _But,_ she thought to herself, _I'm right, aren't I? Raphael didn't have to be human for April to love him._ She looked startled from the older generation down to Sandro, who seemed not impressed at all, and who was squinting at her.

"Well you're not Belle," her brother accused. "Her name means 'beautiful.' You're _Lafou."_ That was so mean, Wildcard punched him and then fell over howling with laughter, and Sandro grinned and stuck out his tongue and hugged her.

* * *

Wildcard's bewildering taste in movie endings was forgiven, and the turtle family went on to enjoy many more samples of Disney Magic that evening, pushing far into the wee-hours of their 'night' as they loaded back up on fresh Tortilla chips, salsa, and cans of soda. Everyone had Orange Crush but Leo and Wildcard: He drank Ginger Ale, and she found cans of Dr. Pepper thoughtfully waiting for her in the refrigerator.

When the credits of their third movie pick began to role, Wildcard was surprised no one immediately broke out humming or talking behind her. Sandro stretched, yawned, and said, "Man, that one was-" She slapped a hand over his face. He jumped and blinked sleepily at her in surprise.

Wildcard jerked her thumb up at the older generation, and she and Sandro slowly and gingerly turned themselves around. Mikey was asleep on Leo's right. Donnie was asleep on Leo's left. Both had their heads pillowed against him. And Leo, who had an arm resting about the collar of each of his younger brothers, had fallen asleep while seated—comfortably, but seated—with his chin resting on his plastron and his legs stretched out in the space between where Wild and Sandro had been sitting.

The two children stared in awe of how adorable this scene was. Then Sandro looked to Wild, lifted a single finger in front of his beak, and nodded to tell her they ought to keep quiet. Wildcard stood and offered her hands down to Sandro so she could help him stand up without hurting his poor knee. He took her hand and she leaned back, and together they hauled him to his feet. Then he kept hold of her hand, and led her quietly through the house. She picked up her backpack as she went.

* * *

Sandro found her a fresh toothbrush, and together the two of them brushed their teeth and rinsed with Listerine. Then they tiptoed down the hall and Sandro gestured for her to wait as he slipped into one room. She heard some soft rummaging through drawers and he emerged a few seconds later with a soft black T-shirt and similar pants she could use as night-clothes. Then he led her to another door which he eased open on her behalf. "This is the guest bedroom," he whispered beside her temple. "You can sleep here."

She bobbed her head and waved to him, and he waved back to her, and the two of them retired to their separate rooms. Wildcard changed out of her costume and into the things she'd been given. They were just a little long on her, and she reasoned they were probably spares belonging to his mother. She went to the neat bed, and pushed the blankets aside, and laid down to try to sleep.

...

Wildcard got back up and tiptoed across the house. She went to the kitchen, and got herself a drink of water, and then went back to the couch—which was where she ought to have been sleeping after all—and peered from one turtle, to another, to another. Exhausted by her day, she tottered up to Mikey's side of the couch, and climbed onto it, and climbed onto him. Orange Turtle blinked blearily awake, discovered a child curling up to sleep on top of him, smiled fondly, loosely draped his arms about her, and immediately fell back to sleep.

Man, that was true love right there. Wildcard fell asleep almost instantly under his chin, and her last thought was maybe her insomnia was secretly some kind of separation anxiety and she just needed to snuggle with Joker more.

Sandro probably ought to have passed out the moment his head hit his pillow, because he couldn't remember struggling to sleep a day in his life. But instead he thought about his companion just a few rooms over, and about her claims of insomnia. He pet his crocodile until, sure enough, he swore he heard the kitchen sink running and stood up to go peek out his door. Hmm.

He stepped quietly out and went to check on the spare bedroom, but found his counterpart to be missing. If she wasn't here, and she wasn't in his room, there were only so many places she could be. He didn't hear anything from the dojo or weight room, and she'd been surprisingly good about never sneaking into the lab. After a moment, he turned himself about, and snuck quietly back into the living room.

She was curled up on top of Michelangelo, with Leo's arm around both his head and hers. Sandro blinked sleepily at her for a very long moment, debating whether or not to wake her up and haul her back to a more appropriate sleeping location. He yawned to himself, shrugged, and then limped over to the side. There was only one possible way to balance this out. He hadn't climbed into bed with any of his uncles since he was _ten_ , and couldn't have possibly defended this choice of sleeping location, but Donnie only woke up by the loosest of definitions, during which he opened his arms to make room and then basically snuggled into his equally sleepy nephew. There, now left and right each had a kid.

This was going to be _funny_ come morning.

* * *

Donatello needed a good, strong alarm clock to wake him up in the morning. Without one, he found himself blinking groggily awake at an utterly unknowable time, and fumbling to adjust his glasses. Then he realized that his nephew was curled up asleep in his arms, which was still absolutely adorable because Sandro was a foot and a half shorter than him, but which Donatello had not expected to happen again, ever. He blinked in puzzlement down at the sleeping boy, who looked utterly content despite his bizarre placement. Donnie smiled to himself. And then of course Donatello recognized Leo's arm, and tilted his head back to see his eldest brother was still with them.

Leo cracked one blue eye open at him, and then closed it again, apparently perfectly content to remain where he was.

Donatello was impressed, and cleared his throat. "I'm going to presume it's _well_ past dusk, so shouldn't you be out on patrol?"

"I decided to enjoy my family a little longer today," Leo murmured. "Since I so rarely have a solid _four_ of them trying to sleep on top of me all at once. They are depending on me not to move, after all, least I disturb their slumber."

Donnie chuckled and grasped his brother's arm affectionately to let him know how much it _meant_ to him, that Leo would simply want to stay with them and extend their sentimental movie-night camp-out into what otherwise could have been work hours– Wait. _Four_? Startled, Donatello tilted his head back and twisted his neck. He could see the top of Michelangelo's bandanna across Leo's lap, and he could see the edge of a smaller person's arm where it was wrapped around his little brother's neck.

Donnie scowled, partially propping himself up to reach across and shake Orange awake and tell him how _completely inappropriate_ it was that he should have a fourteen year old girl sleeping on top of him–!

Leo caught his arm before he could even try, and shook his head. "Do not," Blue intoned.

"What?" Donnie hissed. "You don't think something's wrong with that? You, Mr. Extremely Cordial Japanophile?"

"Donatello, Michelangelo has no chance of ever having a daughter of his own," Leo murmured. "None of us do. But he is the one whom has been adopting stray kittens since early childhood; He is the one who has the most love to give, and yet he is also the one who matured into paternal instincts the slowest."

" _You_ don't think what he's doing is inappropriate?" Donnie could scarcely believe this!

But Leo answered a firm and solemn: "No. What you fear as 'inappropriate' could only be such if we were doubtful of his intentions, which we are not. _Let him_ , Donatello. Let him play make-believe with her; Let him love on her all he can; Let him have this ghost of part-time fatherhood. It is the closest experience he will ever have to the real thing... And you know well that he is not hurting her, and that he would never hurt her, and that he may even stand a chance at doing her some good. She is a very strong child, but very damaged, and Mikey—of all the people she could have possibly gravitated towards—is both kind-hearted and safe."

Leo released his hand.

Donatello stared up at his brother for a long moment, and then slowly and hesitantly looked back down to his unconcious nephew. Wildcard _wasn't_ Michelangelo's daughter.

...Though Sandro wasn't Donatello's son, either, and yet Donnie loved him as much as he could ever have conceivably loved his own hypothetical child with April. Still they were at least related! Romantic love for April had long been allowed to mellow down into a deep, platonic admiration for her, and Sandro was her _masterpiece_ whom Donatello had nurtured for her every step of the way.

But that didn't sound quite truthful either, for another part of Donnie told him that if he found out tomorrow that, by some strange, cosmic accident, Sandro _wasn't April's,_ he would have loved the boy every bit as much as he loved him now. Sandro wasn't Donatello's son... But taking care of him _was_ the closest thing Donatello would ever experience to actually being a father...

Enough. This was upsetting. He didn't want to think about this, or Mikey, or anything else anymore. Donnie wrapped his arms tight about his nephew again, and leaned his temple back into the boy's, and tried to fall asleep again. It was probably the last time he'd ever get to _snuggle_ with the child whom he'd once chased around the house trying to get into a fresh pair of Pampers, and dammit he was going to enjoy it.


	66. Still Takes a Village To Raise a Child

_(Flashback)_

It was fourteen years ago and in the dead of winter, and the Lair's newest addition was sound asleep. Bless him, but that had been just the break his eighteen-year-old mother had needed. Shell, it was the break they'd _all_ needed.

See, April was _determined_ to breastfeed her own child, cuddle him, and be there for all his early development; but in between taking care of her fussy newborn and handling freshman year at college, each and every single hour of her day was consumed by things both urgent and important. To have an extremely displeased infant crying every two hours, round the clock and through the depths of night, had pushed everyone well past the borders of fatigue.

Until, _suddenly_ , bless him, Sandro unexpectedly stopped waking them up at almost exactly three months of age. By morning they'd been so shocked they'd all rushed to make sure nothing had happened to the little guy. He'd greeted them with grumpy demands for food.

Ah, grumpy, fussy little Sandro. Humbling but true: He really was his parents' son.

Sandro had no teeth yet, but he of course had a fully developed beak, and the first time he'd _bit_ her while nursing—out of some wholly unknown grievance—the experience of _nearly_ _losing a nipple_ (to say nothing of the world's most awkward emergency conversation with the family medic) had sold her on the idea that a breast pump really was a necessary expenditure of family funds. April still fed her baby against her chest, but now she used a bottle; and every time she felt anxious wanting to breastfeed him, Sandro went and bit a hole in a plastic teat, and she grimly reminded herself, 'that could have been me.' The internet informed her that yes, some babies _did_ do this. Usually with less sharp edges in their mouths, though.

Well! At least filling up bottles ahead of time made it possible for the boys to calm the baby down, which was only fair to them. Plus she no longer had this pressure to budget her school time into small enough blocks to rush home and nurse Sandro every two hours.

Having Donatello as a best friend was a godsend, first because he had a lot of experience running on caffeine anyway, and second because he was willing to set aside all his projects and lab work (and a lot of emotional stuff too, if she was being purely honest) to help her out. But Donnie was also the one bringing in the most consistent money, and Mikey—who was her second best helper—couldn't support them on those sizable but sporadic payments from _Cowabunga Carl_ alone.

That was only the tip of the iceberg, because in addition to all these fairly mundane concerns, Shredder was less than half a year dead, and Leonardo and Raphael were stretched to their limits trying to deal with the violent and sporadic fall-out from the Foot. Leo had shattered a katana no one had the money to replace and Donnie had one hell of a workload that prevented him from figuring out how to fix it himself. April had been attacked twice on her walk between classes, the Lair was constantly being watched, and Leonardo had barely escaped numerous ambushes and sustained numerous small injuries. Thank _goodness_ even frothingly angry evil Ninjas were apparently too polite to attack children's birthday parties, because Mikey was managing to skim by without any major incidents.

But they got by, through one means or another. Leo turned up almost daily at her college with expired _Einstein Brothers' Bagels_ and a handful of condiments to feed her and Raphael lunch so they didn't have to waste money on overpriced fast food, and dinner was usually Ramen and some form of salvageable vegetable too old to stay on Walmart shelves. Sandro was an _incredibly_ hungry child, and though April had initially balked at the idea of being 'insufficient' to feed her own child, and had cited monetary concerns, she did have to admit that having some top-notch formula on hand took a lot of pressure off her pit crew. Aaannndd there was something extremely adorable about walking into the house to unexpectedly find Mikey or Donnie singing to and nursing the newborn baby.

Turtle babies needed other things, too: Diapers, a crib, blankets, a heat lamp and humidifier to prevent shell rot, ointment for butt rashes... But even that was thinking _small_. A month ago, Leo had rushed up to all of them looking incredibly freaked out, and demanded, 'are we going to allow him to crawl on the floor!?' They'd all peered down at it—covered in mold, rat droppings, literal human waste from the sewers, beer bottles and pizza stains—and immediately all three other brothers (even Mikey) announced there was no possible way they'd ever let that happen. That was another thing: Sandro was more _coordinated_ than any human newborn. He'd been born perfectly capable of grabbing things: hair, skin, glasses, faces; and he had a deceptively strong grasp for someone so tiny and helpless. All of them expected him to be crawling before he had any business crawling.

So when Raph, Leo, or Mikey weren't busy, there was no time for even watching television or unwinding for a video game; No, instead the boys could always be found hard at work with power tools and stains and wood, trying to turn their filthy, rotting sewer into a place they felt was fit for a baby. According to Donatello, the four of them had been ill, injured, or hungry many times as babies, and it was both a means of bother honoring their father, and providing for their little one, to create the kind of environment Splinter would have _wished_ to rear them in.

So at the end of all of that, what she'd needed—what they'd all needed—was sleep.

But Sandro, poor sweet Sandro, had been an incredibly fussy child. Initially April had presumed his restlessness normal, because she had no previous experience with kids and knew they could keep their parents up at night; but then her father had been introduced to him over Christmas and pronounced him as having the most _choleric temperament_ of any child he'd ever seen. She'd asked if that meant she was doing something wrong. Her father had shook his head and told her that sometimes babies were _just fussy,_ and that the only baby he'd ever seen who'd come close to being this grumpy _had been April herself_. _(_ Boy had Raphael gotten a laugh out of that one.)

Every night, every two hours, almost like clockwork, Sandro had screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed, even if he wasn't hungry, nothing was wrong, and trying to pick him up only made him flail. Donatello had managed to curb _some_ of the situation when he'd sewn pockets in a large, soft plushy and given it to him, and Sandro had bunched his little arms and legs up in it and rolled about with it and calmed down for longer stretches of time. Donnie had called this a 'balling' instinct which he said stemmed from how none of them could retract into their own shells to feel safe. Donnie had then gone on to scare her by saying that normal human infants were terrifyingly proficient at smothering themselves in their sleep, for which there was even a medical acronym: SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He'd initially read it was highly ill advised to put large soft objects in a newborn's crib, but then had gone on to calculate Sandro was robust enough to be absolutely fine. Thank god for having a brother in law who could apparently science the shit out of anything, right?

Even after all that, Donnie, Mikey and April had been forced awake one to two times each, every night, to get to the baby, who never seemed particularly happy to see any of them. They even took shifts.

So when that had stopped, and Sandro had suddenly started sleeping through the night, it had been a major sigh of relief for the entire family. Shell, it might have saved some of their _lives._

...These days, other things still woke April up, sometimes...

Anxiety. Looming tests. Fear of assassination. Fear of kidnappers. Usually she just rolled into Raphael and tried to let the physiological sensation of being curled up with so much raw power calm her down. (Raphael might not have been able to fight all her battles, but _damn_ could he fight some of them). Tonight however, in the dead of winter, with their beds covered in blankets and their rickety old space heaters—recovered from the dump, of course—puttering along, she realized she'd woken up to find Raphael missing. For one, wild, crazy second, she panicked; and then she was bolt upright in bed and totally unable to sleep.

 _It's okay. He's probably just in the bathroom. It's fine._

She contemplated walking on that ice cold floor to go get herself a glass of water (and hopefully bump into her missing boyfriend), and told herself she needed to find the spare change and spare time to get into a Goodwill and scrounge up some bunny slippers. Either that or ask her dad to spot her again, because _cloth items_ were never the fun sort of thing to go dumpster diving for.

 _He's fine. Raphael is fine. He is enormous, and can take care of himself._

Gah.

April got up, and hurried across the floor to make the cold hurt less, and remembered to open her door very quietly in the hopes of not waking up Sandro. His cradle was in the center of the house, where all of them could get to him and keep an eye on him.

Much to her surprise she saw that the television was on and muted, providing the dark house with quiet blue lighting. Huh. The closed captions were on. She could hear a quiet sound above the noises of the sewer and portable healers, something like a low crackling or wheezy rattle.

Off to the side of the television, looking as comfortable and calm as someone who had done this a great many times in the past and was willing to do it a great many times in the future, sat Raphael in the rocking chair with their infant son and a swaddling of blanket curled up in one of his arms. He was had one foot up against the entertainment stand, and the other knee raised to support his opposite arm as he fed the boy from a bottle. And when Sandro kicked and fussed, Raphael caught one of his little feet, rubbed it between forefinger and thumb, and played with the toes, perhaps marveling at all five of them.

That was when April realized:

Sandro _hadn't_ been sleeping through the night; he was still the fussy, squealing, grumpy, demanding little pook of joy he'd always been. Instead, his father had been waking up every night, without complaint and without a word to any of them, to sit with him and lull him back to sleep. If the quiet and almost imperceptible 'rumble' Raphael was leaking was any indication, this was _his_ time alone, to spend just with his son.

April eased the door shut, and tip-toed hurriedly back to bed.

* * *

( _Present Day_ )

April was dosing fitfully: she couldn't sleep but she was too tired to stay awake, and so she'd been absently traversing memory lane. She rolled over into the emptiness of her king-sized bed. These days they had central heating and central air conditioning in this high rise condominium, and the floor was any damn temperature she wanted it to be. She sat up, and reached down beside her bed to find her yellow bunny slippers, treasures she'd found in Goodwill over a dozen years ago, and which were finally growing threadbare. She was reluctant to part with them.

April stood, and stretched in the pitch blackness of the house at midnight. She strode up to her door and opened it, and made her way across the living room and its Japanese carpets. She went into her work den, with its enormous leather couch protected in thick, knitted blankets, and its battle-scarred occupant. Raphael was fast asleep with his hands behind his head and one knee raised and leaned against the back of the couch. He looked incredibly comfortable.

She looked to her computer, and then she looked at Raphael. After a long quiet, she went to the couch, stepped on the toes of her bunny slippers to remove them, and climbed up onto the smooth and glossy carapace of his chest armor. She melted into the heat which radiated off of him, and tucked her legs between his thighs because his bare skin was much hotter than his armor.

She listened to him breathe.

"S'mean ya forgive me... or just dat you're cold?"

"It means I'm cold," she muttered into his plastron.

Raphael lifted his head and brought his arms down to drape them over her and gently chafe her arms and shoulder blades. He eased his raised leg down beside her, capturing both of her legs and especially her feet between the heat of his thighs and calves. He didn't say anything, though.

Her fingers tightened on the plates of his armor. "That's it?" she asked. "No leers or raunchy jokes, or even an: 'Ah ken think of a few ways ta warm ya up'?" April had many years of practice mimicking an accent, which—despite being a quadruplet— _only_ Raphael had managed to pick up.

"Nah," Raphael yawned, easing one arm back behind his head and leaving the other draped around her. "Ah fucked up. Ahm gonna be in the dog house fa weeks. S'fair."

"For Christ's sake," April moaned, smearing hair out of her face and then propping herself up on her elbows to glare at him. "Hello! Turtle! Red! Honey! Over-sized and unnecessarily macho Living Cannonball!" She shook him. "You are presently under-performing at the primary way you're good at improving diplomatic relations with your spouse!"

"Mnn, what way is that?" he asked, opening just one eye.

April shuttered her eyes at him. "Make-up sex, _Asshole_. You're at least _halfway_ _decent_ at _that_."

But Raphael only stretched. "Oh, Ah dunno about dat, Ah'm na sure I _deserve_ sex." He yawned again. "Shouldn't we talk 'bout it like adults and shit fa some more weeks? Besides, sounds exhausting. Dun _you_ have an important meeting t'morrow? Yeah, I dun wanna mess that up."

April dragged herself up his plastron, grabbed his face between both hands, and glared at him. Raphael opened one eye again, and tried to look completely innocent despite all the mirth dancing inside. "Give Me Sex," she ordered. " _Now_."

"Yes Ma'am," her turtle growled mischievously, plucking her up in both enormous arms. He swung his legs off the couch, and carried her back to their bedroom; and to stave off her complaints about how he was wasting time and they could have just done it on the couch, he intercepted her with a kiss and a tongue which traced her lower lip and the ridge of her teeth and tickled gently down the side of her tongue. Then her back was on the sheets and he was over top of her, and what did he do? He started moving around blankets to get his and her legs under them.

" _Raph-a-el_!" she shouted as she whipped a pillow at him.

"Gotta make sure ya ain't cold," he reminded her smugly as he pulled those blankets up over top of them like a tent. At least the faint, sweet tang of chelonian musk on the air couldn't help but be more honest with her.

* * *

Michelangelo woke up Wednesday evening/morning/itwashardtokeepnocturnalvocabularystraight to a girl sprawled across his plastron with her head tucked under his chin, which by all appearances had _clearly_ looked like a very comfy place to go to sleep. Very understandable! Still, his first thoughts were 'Eek, don't kill me bro!' because Donnie and Leo were usually up way earlier than him, and so surely they were already glaring at him, and anyway he'd gotten thorough talking to by numerous people just because he'd visited her once by window, and visiting by windows was normally turtle standard policy!

But wait a minute, if Leo was still there (with his arm about both of them simultaneously, d'aww!)... and Donnie was still over there... Hmm...

Pfft, there was no way he'd woken up before them. They were totally letting him get away with it. Besides, she was so teeny her butt barely made it halfway down his abdominal armor, and he was wearing pants, and _obviously_ nothing shady had happened, and eeee and her little legs were tucked into the lip of his shell under his arms, and it was soooo cuttteee. Omigod her feet were tiny! What sized shoe did she wear again? Did she have one sock _on_ and one sock _missing_!?

Mikey settled happily back in with his rent-a-child, and pet her hair because he never even got to touch April's _or_ Shadow's, and how sad was that? Tee. Backs without shells were so _weird_.

'I think you'd be a great dad,' she'd said to him, 'You should consider adopting if nothing else works out.'

Was that even a possible thing? Adopting a normal human baby? Probably not. Even Mikey, who liked to get excited about impossible things, could see that nobody running an adoption agency was going to let a bunch of bachelor ninja mutant reptiles take a kid into a sewer. Just wasn't going to happen! Their house wasn't even technically _legal_ , much less capable of passing fire codes inspections. Maybe it was _technically_ possible for him to sign paperwork for a direct adoption, or even just do it without documents, but, no, no it was just never going to happen. Scary-looking mutant recluses, who hid in daytime, weren't going to randomly blunder into someone with a problem situation who'd randomly surrender their baby over to them! So it _was_ impossible! Right?

Wh...what if Mikey went _looking_ for just such a person? Like, seriously looked? Snooped through public records and arrest warrants, poked around homeless centers and low income housing, trying to sniff out someone in trouble—or someone just plain _terrible—_ who had a newborn or toddler they either couldn't keep, or _didn't want_? Oh boy, that was scary and upsetting on a whole 'nother level just to imagine.

B-but was it possible? If he was absolutely _dogged_ about it, would it be _possible_ to find a child who would be better off even with abnormal parents, and in a sewer, than wherever it was they presently were?

...

Man.

Deep thoughts, yo. Deep thoughts.

Lil Minimeme shifted awake where she was sleeping on top of him (Probably because he was playing with her hair, dope!) and blearily opened her eyes. "Oh hi Freckled Sunshine Mom," she mumbled sleepily, and rubbed her face on her sleeve, and Mikey's good feelings immediately returned as he squeezed her.

"Wanna help me cook breakfast?" he whispered.

She blinked groggily several times. "I don't know _anything_ about how to cook."

He grinned brightly. "Wanna learn?"

* * *

Wednesday evening came with an unexpected surprise. No sooner had April finally gotten off work and regrouped with her spouce just inside their balcony, than her cell began to ring with a home group phone number. She went to go fetch the otherwise troublesome device which liked to invade her sleep with work calls in the dead of night, and quickly answered.

"Hi Mom," Sandro greeted her a little awkwardly.

"Sandro!" she was surprised. "What's the matter, honey, is something wrong?"

"No, I just wanted to say hi."

"Oh!" April stilled, blinking, because that meant _a lot_ coming from a moody teenager who'd just been seriously hurt by his own family member and then screamed 'Leave me alone' at them when they'd been trying to hug him and tell him goodbye for the weekend. Where exactly were they at in the fixing-all-this process? Was he okay?

"Um, I was just thinking that maybe, if it was okay with you... I could call you sometimes and ask how your day went?"

This was _amazing._ Sandro hadn't been much interested in her calls home since he'd gotten old enough to start entertaining himself! "O-of course, honey." She glanced to where Raphael had come up curiously beside her, clearly wondering what the phone call was about. "How was _your_ day, then?"

"Nu-uh," Sandro laughed. "I asked first."

April beamed and tried to think of what to say. "Well it was kinda frustrating and circular," she admitted with a laugh, sitting herself down to rub her feet free of the strain of high-heels. "We're trying to do a big purchase while avoiding _being_ purchased, and negotiations keep going around and around and around... Pretty boring, despite how much work it takes."

She could almost _hear_ her son smile, and her heart welled up with light and happy emotions. "Sounds monotonous," he sympathized. "Is, um, is dad there?"

"Sure, we just got home. He's right here. Still in armor."

"Can I maybe talk to him?"

"Of _course_." She looked to Raphael and covered the receiver. "He just wanted to say _hi!_ " she told her husband excitedly, and Raphael was equally surprised and elated. "He wants to talk to _you_."

Raphael stiffened, a little worried (as he should be), but he quickly nodded and came up to take her phone (which was so teeny in his big hands) and brought it to his ear. He walked over beside the balcony, perhaps for best reception...

...or perhaps because talking to his own son was sort of sentimental and Raphael did sentimental best when not precisely 'crowded.' April watched him go, smiled, and then quickly busied herself with something else so that he wouldn't feel her stare on him.

* * *

"Hey kid," Raphael answered. "What's up?"

"I forgive you."

Those words hit like a punch in the gut, and Raphael couldn't answer them for a moment. He sucked in a breath between his beak. "I'm still sorry," he managed.

"Appreciate that," the boy admitted. "Leo finally just let me go through the basic exercises of Ninjitsu today. Yesterday I didn't need the crutch and today most of the bruising's gone, so I should be fine by the weekend. You'll still train me, right?"

"Yeah," Raphael agreed. "If you're sure ya want me ta, I mean."

"I'm sure. But you've gotta promise not to get annoyed with Leo and Donnie when they inevitably insist on watching because they are not-so-sneakily playing referee and/or parole officer."

Raphael coughed a laugh. "Ah'll try not ta, but if I bump my shoulder into them unpleasantly hard while entering or exiting a room, that's just fair game."

Sandro laughed too. "Well _naturally."_

Raphael leaned against the balcony door frame. "What made ya call?" he asked fondly.

"Loudmouth here was teasing me, saying if I miss you guys so much," he cleared his throat awkwardly, "maybe I should, ya know, _call_ you during the week, instead of, er, only contributing 'negative feedback' by getting pissed at you for leaving every week. I told her I didn't have anything to say, so she took my phone, dialed mom's number, and put it back in my hand and said 'good luck.' I'm thinking with friends like these, people don't need enemies."

Oh boy. Raphael lifted his head and considered the wife not too far behind him. "Well I can't say I know anything about that," because he literally couldn't even if he had a thousand questions to ask or things to say, "but ya mom looks like Christmas came early, so... maybe a few awkward calls'r so'll eventually give ya a topic or two ta chat on."

"Guess that's true."

"Um... Thank you for callin, Sandro." He wasn't sure what to say, but he did belatedly remember Sandro complained he never used his name, and Raph had picked up the phone with 'hey kid.'

"I still wish you were both home."

 _Ah. Yeah? Me too._ "Well, New York ain't really all it's cracked up to be when ya can't really go inside anywhere or do anything," he joked to take the edge off. "The two major high-society things worth talkin about are Broadway musicals and fancy restaurants. Guess who can't take his wife ta either?"

Sandro was quiet for a moment and Raphael tensed, wondering if something _he'd_ said had gone the wrong way, like 'mistake' had. Then Sandro snickered. "But can you imagine waltzing into one of those establishments, with all the marble and the twinkling chandeliers? Just as yourself, with mom on your arm in a fancy dress, and being all snootily like 'table for two, please' as the the staff is all just gaping in horror?"

Raphael started laughing. "Dunno if they'd have a chair sturdy enough for my fat ass! Uh, I mean _tail_."

"Yeah but you're so intimidating that three waiters run out to grab the leather armchair from the lounge to compensate! Meanwhile they're all shuffling menus, trying to figure out if any of the items are offensive, babbling to one another 'what even IS he!?'"

"Ha! Yah, because nobody knows how the shell to feel about a mutant walkin in, or whether ta even call the police, but blast it all, the one thing they ain't gonna do is end up on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper touted as havin anythin other than 5-Star service!" Raphael snickered.

"Turns out there's 'escargot' being served, everyone freaks out cause snails have shells, so is that racist?" Sandro cackled. "There's this ruckus in the kitchen as they desperately try to find an older menu and figure out if they have the raw materials to make whatever was served that day, they don't, someone has to go source a pig in a hurry, 'I'm so very sorry... _sir_ , for the delay, it'll be just a few more minutes...!'"

"Oh yeah, and of course Ah'd have the perfectly tailored silk tuxedo suit to go with this stunt and am totally chill and smooth and know exactly what all the forks are for as I tuck mah napkin, 'No problem, take ya time. Bottle of ya finest _Gaja Barbaresco_ while we wait...'"

"What even _is_ that!?"

"Pfft! Two hundred dollar Italian wine! I swear, watched ya mom go through enough fancy dinners without me able ta be down there wit her, I could probably pull it off, too, like with the best of dem hoity-toity rich ba- _dudes_. That'd sure stop anybody from tryin' ta put da moves on her at networkin galas evah again!"

"'Yes, you remember my husband, right?'" Sandro lisped in _way_ too good an impression of a girl's voice. "'Seven-three? Can bench a small vehicle? _Cultured_?'"

 _HA!_ Both of them ended up laughing so effing hard and Raphael was so very glad he'd called.

* * *

"I heard you lost a fight!" Joker pounced on the back of the couch, grinning at her from ear-to-ear as she walked in the door.

Wildcard leaned back to her heels, blinked at him rapidly with her hoodie still half on and her rain boots dripping in mud. "What?" she asked, because Wednesday had been so incredibly mellow compared to every other day of the rest of forever, and the only exciting things that had happened the entire day had been successfully mixing pancake batter, and tricking Sandro into having a nice conversation with his parents.

Oh, and snatching out the marmalade from under Leo's hand, slathering her pancakes it in it, and then leaving the knife sticking out of it with butter everywhere and bits of jelly oozing down the sides; and then pushing the jar back to him and beaming like it was her artistic masterpiece she was hoping he'd love, whereupon poor Leo had looked disbelievingly from the marmalade to her at least _six times_ before apparently deciding to pick and choose his battles wisely, heaving a tremendously crestfallen sigh, and sadly going on to dress his own pancakes—

—the fight with Leo about _Hashi_! On Tuesday! "Bat-Turtle!" her father confirmed with a laugh. "Your boyfriend sent me a recap!"

"Oh _yeah_ , BatTurtle flattened me. I wasn't even aware I had dimensions on which I could be so flat, but I was proven wrong. He–" Blink. "Sandro's not my _boyfriend_ , dad!" she exploded with a flailing of arms. "Don't you dare ever even tease about that where turtles can hear!"

Her father laughed even harder. "What's this, what's this! I thought that _you thought_ that you were a tiny Avatar of Chaos in the making! How could you let this happen!?"

"Well sorry to burst both our _bubbles_ dad, but apparently I'm just a boring normal _human,_ who gets teary-eyed when people might possibly not hate me even after I screw everything up!"

He laughed, getting around the couch and coming up to her, and taking her face between both hands. "You are _anything_ but boring, squirt," her father promised her fondly. "But as for the 'human' bit? _Good."_ He tapped her nose. "The world doesn't need any more _Me'_ s. Isn't enough room for them, I'm afraid."

She took a deep breath, and bit her lower lip, because she wasn't certain _how_ her father would react to her... well... _losing_ a fight of principles and ideologies to anybody they were presently referring to as 'BatTurtle.' She took a deep breath, and nodded; and her father must have seen what was going through her head because his expression softened even more and he pulled her into a tight hug.

"You always wanted to be a super hero," her father told her. "From the time you were very small. If all the career options you're presently entertaining are all in the 'super' department... consider whether I randomly finished your _white_ costume before the _black_ one, or whether I was trying to promise you I really am proud of you and the queer and unexpected direction you've headed in."


	67. One Apple, Two Apples, Three

It was Friday afternoon, just before dark. Leonardo and Michelangelo were both ready to head out to oversee the commute, and Donatello already had their surveillance computer toggled to the relevant programs and tracking software. This time around, Sandro planned to speak with his mother soon after she entered the door, especially because Raphael already knew. No point beating around the bush; Today was the day.

They stood in their atrium as the clock counted down, all of them a little bit nervous, all of them a little bit excited, gathered in one last pep-rally meeting with the subject of all this excitement already on hand: Sandro put his hands on Wildcard's shoulders.

"Ya ready for this?" he asked her.

She put her hands on his shoulders and met his smile. "Don't lose your confidence for a _second_ ," she instructed, before of course adding: "It's _very_ attractive."

"My mom's gonna end up filin' a restraining order against ya by the end of the evenin, " he muttered with a sigh and a shake of his head, but then he pulled her into a tight, one-armed hug.

"Remember," Donatello said, placing a hand on both of their shoulders. "This is supposed to be an _introduction._ If it breaks into an argument, don't try to defend _us adults_. Let us handle ourselves, and wait for a chance to resume the introduction calmly."

Both kids nodded, chiming, "Got it," and Sandro added, "Let's do this."

"Aww yeahhh, let's dooo diss!" Mikey crowed, putting his hand into the middle of the pep-rally circle. All four turtles and their new, small human reached in to grasp each other's hands. "One for all and all for one! Breakout!"

They split up and hurried to take their places.

* * *

The moment Mom made eye contact with him upon entering the door, Sandro could tell she was excited to see him, and he wondered if it might have that phone call he'd given them during the week. "Hey Mom!" he called as he crossed the house to get to her and gave her a big hug.

"Hey Sandro!" she laughed. A little pang of surprise hit him, and he realized she usually called him 'honey' when he wasn't in trouble, and that he actually liked hearing his own name out of a disciplinary setting. "How's it going? Wait, first of all, how are you _feeling_?"

"I'm absolutely fine," he blushed a little. "And the leg's good as new, too, so go a little easy on Dad."

"Actually," April said, taking his hand with a bite of her lip, "your father and I have been meaning to talk to you about something for a couple weeks now." Raphael spun about from where he'd been taking his shoes off at the doorway as suddenly as someone who'd just heard a car crash happen behind him. Sandro straightened in surprise, and then followed his mother along as she led him towards the couch–which was where _he'd_ intended to lead _her_. "We were going bring it up at Northampton, but," she explained with a dramatic sigh, "your _father_ said he felt ' _weird'_ about it because "Somethin's clearly in da air,"" she did air quotes, showcasing an apparently fantastic mastery of what Dad's twang sounded like.

"A-actually I had something important I wanted to talk to you about, too." Sandro sat hesitantly down with her; he had no idea where she was going with this.

"Oh?" April smiled. "Well why don't you go first?"

"Um." A glance at his relatives showed that Donnie was puzzled and had no idea what was coming next, and neither Leo nor Michelangelo were clued in either. The only person who seemed to have any idea what this talk would be about was Raphael, and Dad's wide-eyed grimace and the way he had his hands lifted in the air as if he wanted to call a 'time-out' or 'no no no!' but then resorted to running a hand over his head/bandanna and looking away, suggested mom's talk might not be something Sandro wanted to hear.

His mom glanced back at his father, too. "We were going to try talk to you last week," she added a little dryly. "But, em..."

"I had a fight with dad?" Sandro supplied tactfully.

"Calling it a 'fight' would imply it was fair," April looked back to him. "It was extremely wrong of him. But your father does love you; Both of us do." She put her hands over Sandro's. "We've been discussing something for awhile, and wanted to ask if you'd be okay with it. It's just a little time-sensitive because I'm already in my thirties."

Sandro hesitated, confused what her age could possibly have to do with anything. "What is it?"

Raphael cleared his throat before April could answer, and came into the living room to either stand _with_ Mom or else perhaps soften whatever it was she'd been about to say. "Ya mom and I have been talkin about maybe havin another kid, givin ya a little brother or sister." Every nerve in Sandro's body froze. Mikey squeaked a gasp. Donatello literally jumped. "We know we're a bit late ta the game on that one, you already bein fourteen and all, and we're actually sorta sorry we missed the opportunity ta give ya a sibling closer to ya own age."

"We'd always sort of talked about having more children when things settled down," April recalled, eager to explain their reasoning to him. "But... well the time got away from us, and one day I woke up and realized I was getting _old_."

"Ya mom ain't old," supplied the person who was sleeping with her, "but she does only got three more years before, like, Down Syndrome starts bein' a thing. Main thing is, we wanted ta ask _your_ blessin first, kid, on accounta _you_ bein the oldest. Wanted to hear what you thoughta da idea."

Mom leaned forward again, smiling hopefully up at him. "So what do you think, hon?" she asked him. "Would you like a little brother or sister? Is that something you'd be okay with?"

Sandro stared at her quietly. He looked up at his father, and then back at her.

"No," Sandro answered, definitively.

His mother blinked rapidly, surprised. His uncles were all paying attention to him, trying to figure out what he was thinking, or whether he was angry. His father looked to him, too, though almost _apologetically;_ Maybe all the things Sandro had clued him into recently were making him worry Sandro might feel _replaced_.

"U-um..." April bashfully coughed out, before prompting a gentle, "No?" in an effort to understand.

" _No_ ," Sandro repeated, standing up and pulling his hands away from hers. He needed some distance, some space to gesticulate. "That's not okay at all. I mean... First thing's first: you can't have just _one kid_. If you're going to have _any_ kids, you need to have at least two, back-to-back." His parents both raised their brows and straightened a bit, surprised by this. "Mom, Dad, they'd need _siblings._ That was _really_ rough on me having nobody my own age, and honestly might have screwed me up more than anybody really wants to talk about." April tried to open her mouth to take issue with that, but Sandro talked firmly over her, "Second of all: you can't have kids because you don't _live_ here, alright? You'd never get to see them, just like you never get to see _me_. Who's even going to raise these hypothetical children, Donnie again? _Me_?" he almost laughed, even though it wasn't funny. " _I'm_ not going to raise my siblings for you; I don't care if I'll already be eighteen betimes they're three, it's not my job. That's on _you,_ you can't have kids unless you plan to _be here for them_.

"So, no, it's not okay with me," he summarized. "Not unless you're going to move home, and then have two or three so they have companionship, because anything less than that would be unfair to everybody. Most of all it'd be unfair to the kid."

Everyone was staring at him. Nobody else was talking. About thirty seconds passed that way, during which Sandro grew increasingly uncomfortable. Then Raphael reached forward, and grasped April's shoulder.

"D'ya mind if I talk ta ya mom for a sec?" he asked gently.

Sandro rapidly shook his head, and turned away, trying to get a grip on himself. He walked a bit away from them, into the atrium space, and he bunched both arms behind his head, closed his eyes, and took in slow deep breaths through his nose. Behind him he could hear the soft murmurs of conversation break out, as his father and mother stepped off into the hallway to talk quietly with one another, possibly with Donatello in tow.

Mikey came up beside Sandro. "Hey," he murmured. "What do you need? Do you need us to stall, Lil Bro? Cold shower? Anything?"

"I'm okay," Sandro muttered as he paced about to get the bad energy out. "I can still do it, I can still talk to her. But if she comes back in here and wants to _dissuade_ me from disapproving of that whole 'kid' thing, I'm done. I'll end up goin overboard and stalkin off, and we'll have to call it a night."

"I'll tap Donnie, see if there's any way he can keep that from happening," Mikey told him, and then ghosted off.

Sandro tilted his head back and took in another deep breath. _Please, Grandfather, help me. If I have to call Wild to tell her I've screwed everything up a second time..._ He opened his eyes, and then stared up into the rafters above him. His eyes widened in surprise.

* * *

" _Okaa-san?_ " Sandro called, head lowered, hands still behind the back of his neck as he gathered himself up. "Mom?" He heard the background conversation cease, and turned to see they'd heard him, and April in particular had stepped out from the hallway to listen. He dropped his arms. "Do you remember when I said I also wanted to talk to you about something important?"

She looked a little off-balanced, distracted, and maybe even a little upset, but she didn't look outright mad or disappointed with him. "I remember," she said with a quick glance to tell Raphael that Raphael was needed. Sandro filled his lungs with air, levering imaginary weight off and standing tall. It wouldn't even matter if she was mad; he had to be strong. "Did you want to talk now?" she asked him.

He nodded. "If that's okay with you and Dad. I've a confession to make. And, uh, don't worry, I'm not gay _or_ pregnant."

Mom blinked in surprise and bemusement, but then nodded and came forward into the room to give him the full of her attention. Sandro had been trying to tune out her conversation with Raphael, so he wasn't exactly certain how it had gone, but neither Mikey nor Donatello tried to signal him that anything was wrong, and Raphael just crossed his arms and looked mildly impressed Sandro had recovered so fast. Okay. This was it. "What is, hon?" April prompted gently.

"So... Truth is, I let you believe I'd been sneaking topside to stick my snout in trouble," Sandro said, "but I wasn't. I got in just that one fight—the fight I told you both about—and then I never did that again. For months and months after that, I was just going up there because I'd met a new friend, who I wanted to spend time with."

April's eyes flew open wide in surprise. This was an unplanned, quick way of opening up to her, but Sandro _had_ to be fast, so he kept talking after only the briefest of pauses.

"I should have told you the truth immediately, but I was scared to. I knew I was already in a ton of trouble just for breaking the rules, and I didn't know how badly anyone was going to freak out, or whether they'd listen to my side of the story; So the last thing I wanted to do right then was confess to having this friend. I was scared in the heat of the moment somebody would prohibit me from even _talking_ to her, and the one thing I at least still had was her phone number."

"H- _her_?" April emphasized, apparently startled to hear the gender, and then looked around at his uncles. "Did any of you know about this?"

"Mom," Sandro rescued them by employing a trick he'd learned from Wild: redirection. "I'm telling you _now_ because I want to ask if I can introduce her to you. Today, I mean." April looked back to him. "This is the first friend I've ever made and... I'm really _excited_ , and it would mean a lot to me if you'd at least meet her before anything else happens. Please?"

His mother was shocked, confused, and even flustered. She wasn't sure how much information anyone else had, and it was clear she wanted to ask questions and get to the bottom of this, but the hopeful and eager way at least three people were watching her communicated that they were _excited_ and that she was presently on the spot. "Of... of _course_ , honey. If it's safe? If she's willing to come here...?" she looked hesitantly to several uncles who _clearly_ were not as astounded by this revelation as she was.

Sandro let out a heavy breath of relief. "Thank you." He set his beak ridge on edge, whistled shrilly, and opened his arms expectantly to catch the hell-spawned _spider monkey_ who had been hiding up in the rafters. _Grunt._ Several adults jumped and there was at least one cuss word in Japanese. Sandro glared at Wildcard. "How the _shell_ did you even get back into this house, much less up in the rafters without anyone noticing?" he growled. "You were supposed to wait for one of my uncles to pick you up."

"Oh come on, Leo _totally_ noticed, Leo notices everything," Wildcard argued with a gesture of both hands. "He noticed a single strand of my hair, how's that even possible?"

Sandro shook his head, rolled his eyes, and simultaneously tossed her upright to her feet. She hopped to catch her footing, and he rounded her and grabbed her arm, and dragged her out of the kitchen to stand before his alarmed parents. "I'm sorry," he apologized for causing a scene. "She mistakenly believes she has a flair for the dramatic."

"This is th' girl?" Raphael honestly had one hand on a sai, and it was hard to blame him; a tiny not-exactly-ninja had been in his house this whole time with him none the wiser.

"The annoying one on my right? Yeah," Sandro confirmed, letting go of her and crossing his arms over his chest so Wild knew he was unimpressed and that she needed to tone everything down a notch. "She's called Wildcard."

Wildcard took that message, stepped forward, and executed a flamboyant musketeer bow with a flick of both wrists. "Nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil!"

Raphael nearly looked behind himself, and it clearly took a split second to process that _he_ was 'Mr. O'Neil' if his wife was Mrs. O'Neil. His face screwed up in bafflement, so Wild at least got _him_. Mom, however, was not so easily conned. She looked from one bandanna to the other, and then held up her hands to gesture. "Okay, hold on a second, _Time out_ ," she demanded, looking around. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about this? Donnie? _Everyone_?"

Sandro grabbed a rapidly sobering Wildcard by the shoulder, and got her back partially behind him. No matter what happened next, _she stayed._

Donatello strode forward into the room. "Michelangelo and I found out first, April."

"And you didn't think to tell me?" she asked, but didn't wait for an answer, because she was already onto a lead. "A call, a conversation, anything? How long have you known? A week?" Her eyes narrowed. " _From the beginning?_ "

"I thought it could wait until Sandro felt ready to tell you himself," Donatello explained to her.

"You thought something this important was a good idea to keep secret? Why!? Why did anything have to wait in the first place? Just because he was scared _of being punished_? If repercussions were the only issue here, it would have been fine to tell us the next day, or the next week, even!"

"April, I took the opportunity to investigate the girl. Sandro was _very_ concerned about your approval, and I wanted to give him the chance to calm down."

"You should have reassured him right then and there, and then sat down with us on his behalf, and we would have figured this out all together! What is going on, here? Why weren't we told anything!?"

"Been kinda wonderin' the same thing," Raphael admitted, rounding on Donatello. They were a fantastic tag team, for better and worse. "Seein as someone apparently's cleared her with our _automated security system_ already, I'd say she's been here _before_."

Wildcard lowered her head and sucked in an 'oh _boy_ ' sort of breath between her teeth. Sandro stood with an arm out and slightly behind himself, keeping her back there. He felt her fingers curl against his shell, and watched his parents guardedly. ' _Let us adults handle it,'_ Donatello had instructed him. Voices rose on all sides, Raphael condemning, Donatello reacting with accusations, April demanding, Michelangelo fighting. Sandro detached from everything but the tingling presence of his sister behind him, _defining_ him, and watched like this had nothing to do with him whatsoever.

They might as well have been arguing over some rare and expensive vase.

* * *

Leonardo, unobserved and clearly unmissed by the rest of his feuding family, meandered into the kitchen to poke and peak along the counters for a snack. Three turtles and a human who could stand with the biggest of them argued in a whirlwind of accusations and defenses behind him.

Hmm... Donatello had fresh Fuji apples sitting out in a wicker bowl. He tilted the basket and counted five. That would do. He picked up the bowl and went to wash them at the sink with fruit and vegetable rinse, all the better to get off pesticides and wax.

"–and where the _fuck_ da you get off on makin' that call _for_ us?!" roared one side.

"I'm starting to think someone should have been making a lot of calls _for you_ earlier than this! I'll explain my reasoning process to your wife, but I will not answer to some–!"

One apple. Two. Three. Leo set them neatly upon a paper towel to dry off.

"Have ya even looked inta the fuckin' security of this?! Whether he's been seen by anyone else, whether anyone has pictures!?"

"Of _course_ I have! There was three solid months of back-evidence to prove the girl was basically trustworthy already in place at the start!"

"'Basically trustworthy!?'"

Four apples. Five. Leo turned off the sink. cleaned off the inside of the bowl with a clean and relatively dry sponge. He picked up the apples and dabbed off residual moisture, and placed them back into the bowl.

"You're not only my brother-in-law and best friend, you're the person I trust every week with my son's care, and you _deceived_ me, Donatello."

"April, _c'mon_ ," Mikey begged, and his presence in the discussion was particularly important because April had trouble saying 'no' to him. " _I_ gave Donnie the idea for how to handle everything, yo, and he only agreed cause–"

Raphael didn't have trouble saying 'no' to Mikey, at all. "–Well it was a fucking stupid idea, Mike! You're the excitable _idiot,_ he's supposed ta be da _security expert_!"

"Raphael!" April reprimanded, to Donatello's matching, " _Hey!_ "

"I meant _knucklehead,"_ Raphael dutifully amended.

One, two, three, four apples, back into the bowl–

* * *

A pitched, massive, multi-staged, out-of-control verbal argument was raging, filled with extremely pointed, potentially relationship-damaging barbs and cuss words of all flavors and varieties, and suddenly both April and Donatello whipped out the pause button in unison, despite being on opposite sides of the conflict, and set down their feet to say Raphael had gone way, _way_ too far by calling Mikey an idiot.

Wildcard obviously couldn't help it: She _giggled._ That was the instant everything ended, because with the utterance of that tiny sound, the spell over the room was broken, and everyone turned about to the realization that she and Sandro were both still in the room, listening to all of this.

April recovered first, stepping past Raphael and up to the children. "Sandro, I'm sorry, this was inappropriate. I know I said we'd meet this 'friend' today, but we were unaware of the extent of this issue and we absolutely shouldn't be having this conversation in front of strangers. I'm afraid she needs to leave right now so we can sort this out as a family first."

Wildcard mouthed 'no-no' and shook her head as she recoiled in surprise from the older woman's advance, but then Sandro stepped clear between the both of them, cutting off her view.

"Sandro, I'm serious," April moved to reach past him, and Sandro grabbed her arm lightning fast. " _Sandro,_ " April admonished, but then blinked up at him when her son only stared at her and said nothing, his eyes inexpressive and his mouth closed. She tried to push past him, to assert that she was the adult of this situation, but Sandro did not budge and it quickly became obviously he was already stronger than her.

A strange silence fell over everyone assembled, and especially over Raphael who watched with wide eyes but without completely turning his head to the sight, almost as if all his instincts had been undermined and he would almost rather escape the scene than deal with it wrong.

"Sandro," April frowned, straightening to confront her son. "What are you doing?" Her voice was soft.

Sandro stared at her a moment a longer. Then he said, "Please do not grab at her, mother. She gets enough of that on her way home through the shadier parts of Greenville. She doesn't need it from us."

April's brows furrowed, but she did retract her hand, and Sandro immediately released her. "She needs to _leave,_ " April told him.

"She's not going anywhere," Leonardo disagreed through the crunch of an apple, and everyone turned to see him leaning against the wall.

"I beg your pardon?" April asked.

"She has lessons," Leo explained matter-of-factly. "Now that this charade is over, she has no excuse for skipping weekends."

" _Excuse_ me...?" April rounded on him. "I am the mother, and she does not yet even have permission to _be_ here."

Leo tilted his head and gave her a curious and almost innocent expression. "April, it is not yours to say who enters and who does not." He took another bite. "It is not _your house._ "

"Ya did _not_ just pull that 'master of the house' shit," Raphael growled. "Shoulda known _you'd_ be in on this, too."

"Did I say that?" Leo wondered. "You mistake me, both of you. I have no intention of telling you how to raise your son."

"Yeah, explain that one ta me," Raphael was clearly firing up for a less verbal fight. "Cause last time I checked ya were overridin' his mom who said you've no permission ta bring this girl here!"

"I already have your _blessing,_ Raphael, or don't you remember? And I never required your permission." Leo stood, and leaned over a bowl upon the kitchen table, and from it obtained a second apple. April and Raphael glanced at one another, to confirm the latter didn't know what Leo was stalking about. "She's my _student_."

Raphael's eyes widened. "Ya _fucker_. You _knew._ You knew exactly what the fuck ya were doin' when ya sold me that shit about wantin' a student! Ya think I'm gonna just _take_ that, let ya get away with _trickin'_ me inta given ya a 'blessin' ta undermine us both?!"

"Oh no, Raphael," Leo said as he lifted his apple. "I was very much in earnest. This was no ploy. If you tell me you do not wish your son to associate with this girl, then you may leave me with your instructions. I will schedule their lessons at different times and forbid them from interacting with one another. But she is my student, and she will come to study at my dojo, and that is final."

" _Bullshit_ ," Raphael called.

"You think so? Hm. Perhaps a demonstration will alleviate your misgivings." Leonardo straightened. " _Kinpōge-kun_."

"Hai, Sensei?" Wildcard faltered, stepping apart from Sandro, who turned to keep an eye on her. She was trying to make sense of the future.

" _Nagero,"_ Leo commanded in Japanese, before biting into his apple and supplying her with the translation through a mouthful of food: "Throw."

Wildcard tensed, eyes widening in uncertainty as conflicting memories hit her and tripped each other, but no sooner had Leo told her what to do than he reached out, grabbed the edge of that bowl of apples and flicked it sharply, and everything in Wildcard zoned out. All three remaining fruits went airborne in three separate arcs, one almost straight up, one mid-range, one clear across the entire room.

A knife was out, spitting down the length of her arm as she leaned and spun off her feet to get proper upward momentum in time to send a second knife straight up over her head, and by then her first arm was cycling back and she flung a jackknife as hard as she possibly could, handle over blade, THUD, to hit that final apple straight into the woodwork around the front door, and wobble there.

Wildcard took in a sharp, exhilarated breath, and hopped upright. Had anyone ever seen her do that but Sandro!? April had backed up numerous steps, and Raphael had very nearly teleported across the room he'd gotten to his family members so fast. Sandro was now standing directly between her and Red Turtle, and that didn't seem like a coincidence.

Leo chewed thoughtfully on his apple as he stepped across the room, peering up at the rafters from one pinioned fruit to another. "Hm. That is sufficient," he decided as he stopped beside her. "Even if you nearly missed the last one."

"I wasn't ready!" Wildcard blurted in her defense.

" _That_ is scarcely an excuse." Her sensei gestured to the hallway. "Go to the dojo and begin your warm-ups. I may join you shortly."

" _Now_?" she protested with a gesture to the argument which they'd interrupted (and a now visibly appalled April, and highly twitchy Raphael, yikes).

Leo frowned down at her. " _Kinpōge-kun_ , Mrs. O'Neil has very clearly and politely requested that you be absent while she discusses sensitive and personal matters with her immediate family." He gestured with his apple. "Apologize at once, and then go to wait patiently in the dojo until you are called upon. At her discretion, she may or may not speak with you later, and you are to respect that."

"But I'm also on morale support duty!"

Leo raised a brow and fixed her with a cobalt stare. He didn't say another word.

Wildcard gaped up at him for a moment, thought about this, blinked to herself for a few seconds. _Whelp._ She dropped her arms, sighed, and hung her head. _Okay._ She dutifully turned to Sandro's parents, and executed a proper bow. " _Gomen nasai_ , _O'neil-sama,_ " she droned unhappily. "It was nice to meet you." Worried any attempt to touch or reassure Sandro would undermine the point her sensei had just made, she turned and hurried across the room to go wait as she'd been told.

* * *

Leonardo watched her go to make sure she did not give them the slip or do anything peculiar. Then he turned to his brother. Raphael was nearly seething; Understandable given that a stranger had just unsheathed three pieces of live steel _right_ beside the most vulnerable members of his family.

"D'ya think that was _cute_?" Raphael growled.

"Oh she is anything but," Leo disagreed. "I am keeping the pointy child, and now it should be clear why. Barring that, I have no intention of arguing with you."

"Except about whetha she comes here," Raphael grit out.

"It bothers you that much?" Leo asked. "Fine. You're the one with the condo. Move Sandro in with you." He felt Sandro tense.

"What. The. _Hell._ Leo," April uttered. "What are you even saying? As much as we would _love_ to have Sandro with us, we do not have the means to protect and raise a teenage boy alone in New York. Are you trying to imply something?"

Raphael rounded her and shoved Leo. "Don't ya even talk like that, like we ain't family, like we ain't all in the same boat t'gether! Like this ain't my house the same as it is yours!"

"I did not," Leo turned a shuttered stare on him. "But perhaps it would finally give you some appreciation for how much _work_ Donatello has done for you, how many long nights he stayed up with a nightmaring child, how many countless, unthanked hours he could have put into _anything_ but which he gave _you_ and your son out of love for you. Because this? This is a _shit_ way of showing your gratitude."

"Gratitude for _lying_ to us?" April snapped, only mildly thrown off balance by his decision to use a curse word, because April was one hell of information sleuth and could see the discussion from up top like she had a bird's eye view on the whole thing; the counter talent to Wildcard's diversions and distractions. "Don't make this into something it is _not,_ don't you _dare_ conflate losing this argument with splitting up _our family_ just so you can win a point!"

"'Lied' to you?" Leo asked. "Raphael 'lied' to you; ask him. The people around you temporarily postponed sharing information so that they could their bearings and feel better-equipped to handle both their situations and the situations of their family members. None of that is worth laying into your brother-in-law, under the pretense he has _betrayed_ the foundational fiber of your relationship and somehow rendered all he has done for you _corrupted_."

"I-I didn't say it _had_ ," April said with a glance towards Raphael, who winced and stumbled back a step in surprise. "This is about what's best for Sandro!"

"Meanwhile," Leo gestured to Sandro, and glanced at Donatello to chastise him as well, "the very boy who started this conversation, with no more than the innocent desire to share an important new development in his life with us all, has not been asked to speak his opinion, explains his feelings; he has not even been _spoken to_ since this began, as all of you 'adults' argue completely over his head about his life and upbringing! As if he were not standing _right here_! As if you were indifferent to what he wants, and _ignoring_ the fact that he is now old enough to both understand you, and to formulate perfectly valid opinions about all of these matters."

"Oh, and _you_ think to speak for him!?" she demanded. "For _my_ son!? You barely even talk to anyone, much less him!"

"I _listen._ "Leo pointed to April. "You have asked to know what is going on, and I will _tell you._ Your son is _frightened by you_ and _does not trust you_ , because he believes you orchestrate his life to suit your own preferences _without_ _his counsel,_ and _that_ is why he came to one of us for _help._ "

" _Leonardo!"_ she shouted in disbelief. "Say that again to my-!"

But Leo whirled back on Raphael and sneered contemptuously. "And you, you _know better_ , he has reached out to you _already_ , and you squander his remaining moments of faith in you by _bickering_. Excuse me! I will listen to no more of this." He whirled and strode away. "I am going to make sure my student is not eavesdropping from bathroom corridors. _Sayonara._ _"_

* * *

Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo gaped after their brother's shell, but April was not so quickly disarmed by Blue Turtle's sudden amplitude, pugnaciousness, _or_ loquaciousness, and bellowed: "COWARD! Get BACK HERE!" When Leo didn't slow, she went to follow. Raphael shouted her name, but wasn't sure what to do. Mikey breathed a soft 'hola,' and darted after her.

Red and Purple turtles looked at one another, stunned, mutely asking ' _What the hell just happened?_ ' and answering ' _Holy shit I have no idea_ ,' before movement caught the corner of Raphael's eye, and he twisted about to see his son silently heading for his bedroom door. "Hey!" Raphael blurted. "Wait! _Sandro!"_ He jogged after the kid, grabbing his shoulder. Sandro whipped about but didn't meet his eyes, glaring through him; stiff, angry, and unwilling to be touched. Raphael kept a tight hold of his arm. "Kid, stay with me." Sandro lifted his head a little. " _Stay here_ ," Raphael told him. "Give me at least another hour of ya patience."

The boy finally looked up at him, frowning.

"Will ya do dat fa me?" Raphael asked.

Sandro was quiet a moment. Then he rapidly nodded.

Raphael clapped the kid's shell in thanks, and then turned to look at Donatello, who was waiting right there. _Can I trust ya ta help and not ta turn our kid against us?_ Donatello nodded, and though Raphael hadn't actually asked, he deep down knew what the answer was. He pushed quickly past the dork to find out where April had gotten to, because physical contact—rough or otherwise—was just how they reminded themselves one another existed sometimes.


	68. Hold In There, Everybody

"You really _said_ all that?" Kinpōge whispered in disbelief as she ambushed his leg from the bathroom corridor. He turned an initially stern eye down at her, but the way she latched herself to his hip with her fingers balled up the fabric of his _Hakama_ to peer straight up at him was unexpected, and he slowed so as not to knock her aside. She stumbled along distractedly beside him. "About San; A-about _me_?"

Ire left him and his expression smoothed out as he placed a guiding hand on her shoulder and urged her gently along. Fresh words did not yet come to him, but he maintained attention on her face to let her know he was not ignoring her.

"That I really _am_ w-welcome?" she continued to whisper, betraying distress and giving him the seed of a reply. "What did Raphael mean, what 'blessing?' Why was he calling bullshit? Holy _Toledo,_ Sensei, your dramatic exists are _seriously_ top d-"

" _LEONARDO!"_

Leonardo disengaged from the little one's blathering and paused upon the threshold to his dojo, looking back down the hallway. He tightened his grasp upon his pupil's shoulder and upon the corner muscle of her neck, to wordlessly request her silence.

His sister-in-law jogged up to him and shoved at his chest, her face heated to match the burgundy color of her hair. "What insane dimension did I just step into, that you would spit poison at me and then turn your back and walk away!?" April demanded of him with bared teeth. "As if you did not owe me even the basic decency of explaining yourself!?"

Mikey skid to a halt just beside her, wide eyes asking if he needed help. Leonardo glanced to him and then back to the heated countenance of their family matron.

 _Remove Kinpōge from the situation first._ "One moment, April," he requested, and then looked to the child at his side. "Warm-ups, _now._ Heed me this time, or you will end up back in Hashi."

Kinpōge let go of him with an unexpected wince and a quick 'Hai!' and then scurried off. He watched over his shoulder to ensure she was doing as instructed, and then belatedly recalled the insecure way in which she'd been clinging to him and seeking his reassurances. He almost winced, but then gave the full measure of his attention back to April. "My apologies."

" _Now_ you want to be polite?" she was positively steamed.

"I should not have turned my back on you," he acknowledged.

"That's all!? I have lived in this house with you since before you lost your last three _baby teeth,_ Hamato boy," she prodded him in the plastron. "Who snuck you out to see the Phantom Menace in theaters when we were fourteen? Huh!? Who used her very first signing bonus to fly two hand-forged artisan katana in from Japan? We've been together all our _lives_! What the hell was all that about back there, Leo!?"

"Perhaps you err in presuming I was _attacking_ as opposed to _informing_?" he inquired innocently.

April slapped him for being a smartass. Mikey jumped more than Leo did.

"Hm." Blue Leader wrinkled his nose down at her. " _I_ am not your husband."

"You're still my _brother_ , and always will be!" April shouted up at his face, breathing heavily. "And how dare you act like that isn't true? H-how _dare_ you?" her voice trembled even though it was clear she did not want it to; that she did not dare to let out any softness, vulnerability, or girlishness.

But the sound of pain cued him in, letting him reevaluate exactly what he'd said to her—flippantly suggesting she and Raphael _leave_ if they did not like how he was doing things—and he realized these words had been much more cruel than he intended. Had he been in a charged emotional state when he'd said them? Perhaps.

He lowered his gaze thoughtfully. "I... should not have bluffed about our family's integrity, I will concede that." But then he looked back to her. "But I am appropriately chagrined you have not entertained the possibility I might be legitimately angry with you. Instead you are merely angry that I am angry."

"I'm angry that you are not _explaining_ yourself! I could be twice as angry you kept me in the dark, the same as everyone else, despite your professed devotion to honestly; but I'll settle for one thing at a time!"

"I already have explained myself; your quick mind skipped over it because it did not make sense to you." He shook his head. "April, whatever emotions we feel towards you, be they anger or fear, cannot be 'fixed' except through a willingness to admit fallibility."

"You think _I_ can't accept I have problems?" She spread her hands out in disbelief, and almost laughed in that unhappy way people did when they knew they had problems. "That I think I'm _perfect_ or something!?"

"What I am saying is this: if you would prefer to think I'd lash blindly out at you, in some fit of groundless and momentary emotional hysteria, rather than acknowledge my words and give me the benefit of your doubt, then I have no means of defending my position to you. I do not speak unless I think it _necessary._ "

April shook her head slowly. " _Leo_ , you haven't actually said anything, except that-"

"-that it upsets me to watch you ignore my nephew." Her eyes widened again, incredulously. "Did you not watch him? To see whether he cringed at any of the words, to see if they rang true? Did you charge after me because you immediately dismissed what I had said? Did you categorize my words as an insult, an offense, rather than anything which might have value, meaning, or substance?" He paused in the hopes of making an impact. "If this is your standpoint, then you will simply have to learn to live for awhile with the fact that I am angry at you."

"Because... because of Sandro."

"Yes." Essentially. Not that he was particularly skilled at demonstrating 'anger' or any other emotion in a productive manner; but one supposed it would be hard to fail worse than Raphael.

April didn't understand; But that was not quite her fault, as no one had explained it to her, and she was only standing on the same ground as she had always stood. They—even Raphael—had been given much longer to contemplate the problem, and she was only just now receiving their finalized conclusions. Still, though she was very angry, she stepped back from him to stare him up and down, grasping onto the slowly maturing realization that he was somehow serious.

Raphael arrived, jogging up alongside April and reaching out to touch her back. "Hey. Ape. C'mere, talk ta me in private fa a sec."

April stared at Leo for a moment longer. Then she turned and walked straight for her bedroom door, and Raphael followed on her heel. Leonardo watched them go. He winced as the door shut behind them, and lifted a hand briefly to his face. Then he turned and headed into the dojo.

* * *

"I can't focus on _Ninjitsu_ right now!" Wildcard hounded Leonardo's steps the second she saw him enter the dojo. "Why'd you send me here? Stuff is going _down_! It's not a gray rainy day; I don't have your awful patience! I'm _excitable!_ "

"Truer statements have seldom been uttered," Sensei remarked as he padded past her and past even the Sakura tree. She realized he was heading for Splinter's shrine, and hurried after him.

Past the room divider, they could see that most of the candles had burnt out, and an offering of birthday cake was clearly stale. Leonardo began tidying up, removing old materials from the surface. Wildcard didn't believe in gods, and was pretty sure petitioning elders for their guidance didn't do anything more than sooth the nerves of the petitioner. She crossed her arms, annoyed that Leo's solution to the present situation appeared to be 'prayer' as opposed to 'action.'

Still, all the little tidbits of their hybrid cultural identity were interesting to look at. When Leo turned and knelt before a small sliding cupboard, in which was neatly stored all sorts of objects from altar covers, to candles, to bundled of incense and other significant bric-à-brac, Wildcard couldn't help but crane over to have a look. Leo selected some replacement candles, and sticks of incense, and turned to place them about the altar and light them.

Michelangelo came up behind her, and leaned against the entrance to the shrine. He breathed in deep. "Lily of the Valley, brah?" he asked. "Man, we need it." Wildcard wrinkled her nose, and Mikey chuckled. "Wards off depression!"

"Along with anxiety, stress, mood disorders, substance abuse..." Leo listed in a murmur, before settling back into a squat and raising his hands to pray. "It's a channel of positivity."

"It is a _flower_ ," Wildcard disagreed, waving a hand in front of her face. "With some carcinogens for flavoring." Mikey gently poked her back, and she growled at him. He pouted at her. She felt bad for growling.

" _Manaita no ue no koi_ _._ There is nothing we can do at the present," Leo said. "Return to your warm-ups."

"Yeah whatever," she sighed, and turned to slip out. No wonder Sandro was always so grumpy.

* * *

Mikey watched her stalk past the Sakura. Then he looked hesitantly back down at Leo. Blue Leader admitted flatly, in Japanese, in complete deadpan, and without rising from prayer:

" _I do not know what I am doing._ "

" _Whoa you so totally do not_ ," Mikey coughed in laugher, as he leaned over and rested his hands on his knees to peer at Leo's face. " _But it's sooo cute to watch you flounder through it anyway, yo!_ "

" _What incredibly obvious thing have I done wrong then_?"

 _"With April-sama or with Mini-kun?"_ Mikey lamented.

 _"The only one I can do anything about."_

Mikey's mouth tugged to the side as he thought about it. " _Mini's never gonna be able to give ya her obedience, bro. I mean she's trying, but..._ "

" _How does one train a disobedient student except through punishment?_ "

" _Pfft, as if Dad ever fully had Raphie's obedience. Or mine! He did have something, though."_ Leo glanced at him, though it wasn't clear whether he wanted an explanation or to reprimand Mikey for sloppy Japanese. " _Our lil hearts, dummy._ " Mikey elbowed him gently. " _It's only been three days. You gotta go talk to her, bro. Calm her down._ "

He winced. " _Can you not handle that on my behalf?_ "

" _I'm ~ not ~ the ~ sen~sei ~ !_ "

* * *

Sandro paced around the living room, grinding his beak together and gently rebuffing Donatello's attempts to speak with him. He needed Donnie to wait until he'd cooled down a bit, but with Wildcard just one room over and the 'grown-ups' all still deliberating, he felt like dynamite. If this was how his dad felt all the time and without reason, adulthood was going to suck.

When he heard his parents shut their door, he contemplated sneaking past the bedrooms and getting to his sister. But what would he do if he got there? Grab hold of her and hoard her possessively to his chest and bite at anyone who came near? Hmm, well, that might make him _feel_ better, but it wasn't going to help him win points if someone questioned his ability to make sensible, well-reasoned decisions about his future.

Plus, mother had interrupted the argument to throw Wild out of the house, and Leo spontaneously throwing down an independent claim on 'Kinpōge-kun' was currently some kind of truce or compromise between extremes. If Sandro went in there, even just to join in Ninjitsu practice, he'd be undermining the whole point and possibly spark another argument.

"Punching bag?" Donatello finally asked, keeping his recommendation concise so Sandro could hear it through all the RAAAAWR in his head.

Sandro laughed, and then placed hands over his face. "I hate myself," he groaned. "I hate this."

"Don't," Donatello requested softly as he went to the kitchen. "Or then you really be your father. Um... a few minutes ago, you looked _calm_. Like no matter what we were arguing about, it couldn't touch you. Were you just holding it all in, or...?"

"Na." Sandro grimaced. He heard the kitchen sink turn on. "Was fine. But then Leo took the thing I was protectin' outta da room. N' then Mom didn't even notice me afta." His uncle came back to him and pressed a cool, damp wash cloth to the back of his neck. Sandro grimaced initially, but then reached up and took the cloth from Donatello. "Thanks." He dabbed his neck, throat, face, and scalp with it, cooling off.

"I'm going to go check up on your parents, and on what happened to Mikey, okay?" Donnie touched his shell. "Try to settle your nerves; Whatever works."

Sandro nodded and listened to his uncle leave. Then he glanced up at the front doorway, and squinted at where his parents' jackets were hung up. He walked up to his parents' clothing, and then scoured the pockets. Dad had a lighter. He confiscated it. Mom had nothing in the jacket, so he turned around and sniffed out where her purse had gone. There it was. He began rummaging through it. Car keys, check book, cell phone, birth control... Aha. He extracted a fresh pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

"Whatcha doin' San?" he asked himself. "Oh ya know. Just a routinely cleanin-out of shit nobody needs and ain't allowed to bring into the house anyway." His parents usually blamed Leo. Leo was happy to be blamed. Sandro couldn't outright throw anything away; his parents would check the trash, so he had to stash it at least temporarily. He was amassing quite the collection of lighters. Why not? Felt good to steal hypocrisy.

 _'Try to settle your nerves. Whatever works.'_ Sandro paused halfway through stashing the cigarettes, and peered at the pack. He sniffed it. Hmm. What he wouldn't give to see the look on mom's face if she walked in to see him-

 _Wow. What a hilariously bad time to act out. This must be what Wild's brain usually feels like._ He shook his head clear of an awful idea, completed stashing everything, and then grabbed his new free-weights and went into the kitchen to sit down and sigh away his troubles.

Well. He felt marginally better. That would have to be good enough.

* * *

Wildcard didn't look up as Lame-o-nardo came up to sit in seiza before her, though she could feel him inspecting her condition. He rested his hands on his hips. "It is unusual for you to look sour. Perhaps this should be resolved ahead of time, in case April does agree to see you."

She eyeballed him begrudgingly, but saw he wore a hesitant frown, like he wanted to know what was wrong and how he might fix it. After a moment's displeasure, she picked herself up into seiza and asked: "Why'd you order me out of the room and away from Sandro? I wanted to _help_."

"Why did you not obey my very reasonable request?" he countered. "I, too, wanted to help. I stepped in to remove you from an escalating situation, and yet you fought me at every step of the way."

"Who's to say it's reasonable I can't eavesdrop? I'm not some trained dog!" she snapped. "I don't want to do things just cause you say so!"

"Oh, believe it or not, I do not idly spew commands!" he growled back. "What I had to say was not for your ears!"

"Says _you_!" She tightened her nails into her palms. "You can threaten Hashi like Sandro can threaten _punching_ me, but I'm not going to be your little military cadet!"

"As if it were some payment for misbehavior, as opposed to a deterrent or _learning aid_? Why is my voice insufficient to earn your ear; Have we not already had this conversation?"

"That was about _moral issues_ ," she accused triumphantly with a stab of her finger, knowing she had his number on this one. "Not something merely _convenient_ for you! You think I can't tell the difference!? Okay sometimes I struggle, but seriously! I know I can't 'Hashi' my way out of stabbing somebody, but I ought to be able to sneak topside and into a movie and then tell myself later, while I'm upside down on a chair, 'yup, totally worth it.'"

Leo opened his mouth to argue, paused, became conflicted, and then narrowed his eyes at her. Wildcard grinned through her teeth, cause she'd pwned him. Leo frowned as he sat back and set his hands back upon his lap to think. It was probably best not to tell him he looked just a little bit sultry whenever his eyes were half-lidded. Woopsiedasies, _Focus!_

"It was not for 'my convenience,'" he intoned at last, and then explained himself: "I did not want to watch her and Sandro fight; not before she had yet to be informed something was even amiss between them. I also did not want to criticize the mother of your best friend some place you might internalize it. She is our equal. Our sister, our 'Yang.' She is someone we wish for you to look up to in the same fashion you look up to Donatello."

Wildcard sat back hard on her heels, pursed her lips thoughtfully, and considered this.

"Even if she does not have a pretty shell for you to get lost staring at," Leo reflected. "And even _if_ she is the same gender as you; little territorial one."

Hmph. Well. _Hmph._

Okay, maybe Sensei had a point. Wild didn't usually get along with girls, and there'd been a part of her that had almost smiled in both instances in which a turtle had demonstrated April was physically weaker than them, and that was _way,_ _way_ worse than failing some kind of Bechdel test, not the least of which was because Wild was also weaker than them.

"You know," she eyed him suspiciously, "if you want to try and change my _behavior_ or world view or something, I might listen _one time_ , yeah, but then you have gotta take the time to explain your reasoning afterward. Or you'll burn straight through my limited benefit of the doubt."

"Fighting over every tiny instruction is not how faith in one's leadership works," he lectured as if he'd won.

"Well who on god's green earth suggested you were training a _follower!_?" Wild bellowed. Leo blinked. "Hello! I might be four-foot-eleven, but Type-A personality at its finest right here!"

"Hm." He crossed his arms a little doubtfully, but allowed her continue.

"I don't do that blind faith thing! Are you telling me you never went to your father to inquire his reasoning behind seemingly arbitrary decisions, or, on occasion, disagreed with him!?"

Cobalt eyes stared down at her. "Privately."

She made a 'well there you go!' gesture. "If your way makes sense, I'll have a greater incentive to listen again in the future; But if you just yell at me 'do this,' 'do that,' to every tiny little thing that isn't exactly how you want it, then why the hell _should I_? Mind your investment portfolio wisely!"

"Are you actually suggesting I should see teaching you as _transactions_ involving some form of _relationship currency_?"

"Maybe you'll think twice about what really matters," she sassed. "Being older and wiser and having a very attractive rasp to your voice apparently gets you a prepaid card in my respect, but don't go spending it all in one place. There need to be boundaries here! I would like to please reserve the right to _remain_ different from you, including in some ways you _won't_ like! It's my M.O."

Leo continued to stare at her for a long moment. " _Kinpōge-kun,_ I understand now. You find yourself suddenly afraid of _emotional_ power. It is not about pins or punishments; you are afraid to say 'no' to me because you are afraid of _expulsion_. You were not forced to choose between wildness and your mentor today, but the _theme_ was at least present, and you are not sure I will set fair limits on the scope of my authority in the future."

Wildcard shrunk a little.

"Which," Leo rubbed at his face, suddenly looking tired, "is why you clung to me asking about what I had said to her, and whether I meant it when I said you were welcome here; and why you winced at being sent from my side. You wished to know of my convictions with regards to your tutelage, and if they were fragile."

Wildcard withered a little and said nothing. She was much better at fooling around with other people's emotions than she was at personal soul-searching, and she didn't particularly like to be placed in a position of emotional-ness. She'd much rather be a blazing, unstoppable, fiery meteor. Leo looked hesitantly to Michelangelo, who raised his hands as if saying 'whoa bro, nope, you broke it, you're on your own!'

Quiet passed between them for a moment.

Then Leo breathed deep and leaned over her, and a three-fingered hand fetched her chin up. He curled the other hand gently beside the first, cupping her face in both. "I gave _you_ every chance to pick another mentor, wild child. You refused." He smoothed her bandanna back. "Now you are stuck with me; I shall not give up on you even if you show up in a Foot recruitment camp tomorrow." He leaned nearer, eyes bright, mouth curled in a haughty almost-sneer, and yet looking and sounding so fiercely _endeared_ to the subject of his attention, to _her._ Wild's jaw drooped. "I shall carry you out kicking and screaming over my shoulder, and deliver you hog-tied to either your brother or father with a sign reading 'I tried to join an evil ninja cult' beside you, as if I were pet shaming. And if you think five minutes of Hashi was worth fighting over... _well_."

...Okay...

...further negotiations could wait.

Wildcard scrambled forward between his arms as he leaned back in surprise. She got up onto his lap, clawed her arms around his neck, and fisted into the thick Japanese cottons, and glommed for all she was worth onto to this strangely and unexpectedly _important_ person. Her absolutely least favorite ninja turtle.

 _Mine._

Leo looked to Mikey, if the sudden twist of his neck muscles was any indication, most probably as if asking 'i deserve dis? wat is happen? wat i do?' but then his arms fell into place around her, one forearm locking about the back of her legs and the other folding about her back. "Are you alright?" he asked almost shyly, as if afraid his brief theatrics had been poorly recieved.

"Mn-hmm." She squeezed her eyes tightly closed. "Clearly I just like how turtles smell."

Sensei could be felt to tilt his head to peer at her incredulously, before shaking his head, probably thinking 'child ridiculous. so wow. much nonsense.' Then he breathed in deep, and heaved a tremendous sigh, and leaned his head into her and hugged her for a long moment. He rubbed her back. It must have looked either so cute or so _unlikely_ that Michelangelo couldn't bring himself to disturb them, and after a long while Leo said softly: "Here's an order for you, Kinpōge-kun: Charm Raphael-san and April-sama well enough to earn their honest permission to remain."

"Hai!" she growled affirmatively, eyes opening, because her magic sparkle juice tanks had just been filled to overdrive. "Can do!"

* * *

Talk of babies was far behind them, and Leo was right; Raphael had to get his own head out of his ass and stop focusing on how badly he wanted to break their damn jaws. He watched the floor, listening to April vent and pace, and even though he was so _totally_ on her damn side, he had to be the one to dig his heels in. Eventually.

Raphael couldn't help it; He was _mad:_ "Smug bastard wouldn't even talk ta me. Just kept bringin' up my own fuck-ups, when he was hidin shit from us the whole time. Coulda _helped_ and just made it worse."

"Ho, Donnie let us down," April growled. "But this was Leo's handiwork. You smelled it, you called him out, and you were right; he's already made the decision on behalf of everyone. And when does Leo do that?"

"When something's a bad idea and he thinks he can handle it and doesn't want to be questioned," Raphael completed with a sneer. "Cause the fucker ain't no saint when it comes to sneakin' shit under the radar _he_ wants."

April was in full agreement: "I saw it on his face: he sat back and quietly _orchestrated_ that child's under-the-table acceptance into the house: Turned a blind eye to Sandro sneaking out; Got Mikey to blunder into her; Maybe even _advised_ Donatello to keep quiet until they'd worked things out _themselves._ "

Raphael bristled more and more, but then stubbornly shoved a hand down on his temper. "D'ya listen t'what he said, though?"

"Calling us out as Sandro's parents!" April threw her arms in the air. "Don was hinting at the same thing! Even if something's wrong, where the hell is it all coming from all of a sudden!? The only thing that's happened recently _is this girl!_ "

"Ape," Raphael lifted his head. _Think of Sandro, Raph._ "We gotta let it slide fa now."

"You gotta be _shitting_ me," she looked to him. "I thought you'd be through the roof that your own flesh and blood–"

"Ain't about our feelings, Ape," Raphael said heavily. "Or Leo's or anybody's else. It's about _his_. Sandro's."

"Donatello should have come to us to talk about our son's feelings! I think you and I can both understand if Sandro thought _you_ were a little unapproachable—you cultivate that reputation and wear it like a medal of honor—but _me_? I'm his mother! It's normal for a kid to be distressed now and then; it's not okay for his parents to be kept in the dark and treated like boogiemen!"

"Yeah and I get that, but figurin' out this girl's on our plate right now. So what are we gonna do 'bout her?"

"What!? Why can't that wait until our family is acting sane again!? Clearly we have serious problems we need to work out!"

"Dat might take some time."

"Things take time!"

"Well we have a kid out there right now who's waitin' on us ta make a verdict on what might just feel like the most important day of his goddamn life, Ape. Leo was right about one thing: you and I both talked clear over his head, arguin' with his uncles like our feelins were more important than his."

" _Raph_ ael!"

"And ya know what? That's _exactly_ how he fuckin' feels. Like we're self-absorbed, and don't want him, and like we don't notice him even when he's screamin' how he's unhappy or needs somethin from us."

"What are you even-!?" she lost words and laid her hands on her shoulders. " _Where. Is. This. Coming. From?"_

"The conversation he tried ta have with me about _you_ when he started cussin ya out fa bein controlling, and I went berserk and landed him in the family clinic," her husband rasped. "And I'm tellin' ya we gotta let this shit mah brothers have done slide, and forgive it long enough ta talk ta our kid, cause he's more angry at us and scared of us— _both of us_ —than we've even got a clue about, n' that's why he went ta Donnie fa help and not _you_."

April made an inarticulate sound of disbelief, but then started pacing again. Raphael lowered his head.

"Most of it's prob'ly my fault, on accounta I'd shout him down when he tried arguin' with ya, and like... traumatized him thinkin' convos with you never go anywhere. But it's Sandro that really matters right now."

"Of course he matters!" she threw her arms in the air as she paced. "Why else would we be so upset!? He's our _baby_! Are we suddenly _bad guys_!?"

"Na but today he came ta talk ta us about his feelins, not ta start a family feud. So his feelins matter first; Not ours. Ain't about how anyone's usurped makin' that judgement call from us, or lied to us. We're stealin' the show from what it's actually supposed to be about, all cause _we_ feel _slighted_."

"So go along with what your brothers planned?" she whirled on him. "Donatello is supposed to be _helping_ us raise him because we can't be here, not going behind my back! He's _my son,_ I'm not okay with being cut out of his life because explaining something to me was apparently inconvenient for everyone else's schedules! I carried that boy for nine months, I nursed him at my breast, you and I do everything we possibly can to–"

"Yeah well he ain't a baby anymore," Raphael interjected. "He's old enough to get in trouble; old enough ta get up there safely and back down again with none of us, not even mah brothers the wiser. And Ah should know; We slipped out from under Splinter earlier than him! So yeah, we can be mad at mah brothers, and _fuck_ do I wanna be mad at them, but that's a separate conversation, and what he has ta tell us has gotta get handled first by us, a'right? We can't be flyin' off the handle right now." She had to see which problem was the greater emergency, and that it wasn't the one bothering her and him.

"Flying off the-!?" She clenched her fists, and tried not to win the argument by throwing in his face what he'd done the week before. He ducked his head, acknowledging it, grateful for it. "We don't know anything _about_ this girl."

"We can fix that. She's here, Sandro's here. And Donnie ain't an easy turtle to impress, so he can tell us more, if we let 'im."

"Donnie _lied_ to us," April resumed pacing, though her voice was less angry now and more resentful. Donatello had stabbed her below the belt on this one.

"Yeah. He fuckin did. But near as I figure we gotta let Sandro have this friend. Fuck, even if that's the nastiest little cunt evah scraped off Jersey's shoe out there, that's still _his friend._ Unless she has a fall in with one of the gangs, we ain't gotta right ta tell 'im no."

"Oh _yes_ we do," she laughed unpleasantly because everyone was in huge trouble right now, and no one was going to tell her she didn't have the right to anything.

Raphael scoffed. "What we gonna say ta him, Ape?, 'No, ya bettah off completely alone in this fuckin world, ya family should be enough for ya, be grateful'? If we're even capable of pullin' that shit, then Ah absolutely understand why he was _scared_."

"There's Jean Gray's. Xavier's. Failing that, Shadow's getting old enough to start–"

"He don't need _a_ friend, O'Neil, he needs _his_ friend. He's old enough ta decide what he likes in a person fa himself. And Shadow ain't his age."

April was silent a breath. "You knew," she concluded, looking over to him. "You knew ahead of time; It's the only reason you could be so calm."

Raphael sat back and nodded. "Yeah. Told me last week."

She came up to him, angry but also pleading with him as she clutched his arms. "Why wouldn't _you_ , at least, be honest with me? We're a _team_."

"Wasn't about honest or not honest," Raphael growled, leaning forward to look right into her eyes. "He's mah son too, and I ain't gonna tell ya _everythin_. He gets in trouble here or there, I'mma _laugh_ and hi-three 'im." Her nails tightened. He held her gaze for a bit to make sure the point was swallowed. Then he lowered his eyes and shook his head. "An' Ape, it was last Sunday: He was scared shitless of me, I was fuckin _humbled_. Like, can I underscore the word 'friend' with a marker? It's big ta us. It's effin big."

April stood up, quiet, upset with him, staring at him, but perhaps understanding. She looked away, and started pacing again. Then she stopped, put a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath. "Have you met her? This girl?

"No, not more'n you just did. Pissed as _hell_ at them, for stealin' our damn parental rights and _especially_ fa lettin' her in the house. Sandro was originally gonna tell _you_ first, and I figured I'd let him get away with one more week before th' big convo, so he could at least shed all the bandages, get ready, feel up ta stuff. Especially if I was gonna take the opportunity ta give mah brothers a piece of mah mind."

She pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Donnie's kinda who ya delegated some of this stuff ta," Raphael mentioned hesitantly, unsure where she was at right now. "And they ain't wrong about Sandro needin company. Maybe if he really was scared shitless of gettin her accepted by us, it was only cause it meant a lot ta him. Maybe they just fucked up while tryin ta do the best that they could."

"You're right," she suddenly said.

He cleared his throat. "Ah very rarely am."

"You're right," she repeated as she breathed out. Then she took in another deep breath, and flopped her her arms, and turned to him. "Alright then." Her voice was softer now, resigned, the fires flagged out. "Let's go meet his friend."

Raphael looked up at her a moment and then stood up and came over and took her hands. She squeezed, and then stepped forward and interlaced her arm with his, placing her hand on his shoulder. He cupped the back of her head. As much as he'd said it wasn't about their feelings, they needed a moment, too. They were just people. "You and I _are_ a team, _Yellow."_

"Yes," she sighed, her expression warming a little, "but it's a team of _five._ And that last thing you said, about delegating to Donnie... Well, come on Big Red. I have your shell."

"Got ya back."


	69. Mouse

Counting dumbbell reps allowed him to zone in on small, repeatable sequences of physical activity; It heated his core body temperature but left a quiet in his mind. He got to think of nothing in particular, and definitely not about his parents.

After awhile, something did creep into his thoughts. He noticed the shapes and lines of his own arms, and the compact shape of the muscles—the bicep and shoulder connection in particular—as they flexed. He slowed and then paused with the free weight curl, and reached across himself to touch the muscle groups. To touch the texture of his own skin.

' _What! You don't know you're handsome? Sandro! You and your whole family are breathtakingly good-looking, muscular, and tall.'_

Sandro didn't have a mirror in his room, and didn't have much of a relationship with the one in the bathroom. It was a functional piece of decor. He did remember looking in mirrors as a child, to stare—puzzled and frowning—at all the differences which set him apart from both sides of the family.

But then Wildcard had given him a hand mirror when she'd put him in makeup, and—though Sandro would never say so aloud—seeing his human-like appearance reflected back at him had given him some warm, fuzzy, smug _glee_ all the way down to his toes. Yes it was true that he hadn't looked like his natural self, but those had still probably been the first and _only_ times in his life where Sandro had ever spied his own reflection, stopped short, and thought anything even remotely like 'Whoa! Lookin' good!' (Which, coincidentally, was probably a phrase Mikey woke himself up with each morning; But it was hard to take Mikey's absurd levels of self-confidence seriously.)

 _'Fact is, you're a turtle. One of th' downsides is bein a giant green ogre.'_

Only Wildcard didn't think so. Did she? Sandro had pointed out everything wrong with his appearance to her, and she'd tossed it aside like it didn't matter. But Wild tossed around a lot of things; words, especially. On one hand she'd been fairly consistent in bombarding his entire family in cat-calls, but on the other hand, that just felt like her bizarre way of being friendly. It was almost as difficult to take her seriously as it was Michelangelo. She might have spaced out staring at him and at his relatives at times, but Sandro knew this was only because they were _interesting to look at_.

...because they were _freaks_.

Except... that was not the way Wild _looked_ at him. It had _never_ been the way she looked at him.

Wild always got close to smile up into his face, like she wanted to see his _eyes_ ; even though Sandro's eyes were reptilian and wrong. She engaged with him most times like there was no species gap between them; like he was whatever she was, and she was whatever he was. And then sometimes, she'd just watch him, as if doing so were _plesant_ , as if he were something _special_. Every day she'd touch her forehead to his, or let him rest against her, or solicit a tight hug, proving again and again his physical presence was _reassuring_ and familiar instead of alien.

But what did her comfort levels mean, exactly? Was he basically an aesthetically pleasing anthropomorphized animal who could hold up his end of a banter-filled conversation, and who was physically large enough to be protective? O-or did... did she _like_ how he... how he _looked_? Not in the way one might like how a turtle looked, but maybe like a... a-a _boy_?

Sandro touched the swell of his own bicep, and then hesitantly traced up to where his shoulder was roughly scaled on the exterior. He covered the change in texture with his palm, the transition from human skin to not-human. Which of his physical features were most passably human? Not his mouth, of course, or _snout_. He lacked hair, and his eyes and skin color were wrong...

 _'You don't know you're handsome?'_

He zoned out staring at nothing; half thinking, half not.

Sandro heard footsteps and voices, and quickly looked up and moved to settle down his dumbbell and stand. Random questions about the universe slipped aside; an awareness of his surroundings and context returned, and a cold tang of stress shot through his skeleton as he stepped around the table to see what would happen next. From the sound of things, the adults had all at least calmed down after arguing among themselves. Now he just needed to know whether they had _questions_ for him or _orders_ _._

His fingers curled into his palms. _You all grew up surrounded by people your own age. Having fun, getting in trouble, being inter-reliant, solving problems, bantering sarcastically, talking, playing, figuring out the world._ Sandro looked sullenly at the ground, but then closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his beak, rolled his shoulders back, and straightened up his posture. _Focus._

He looked up just as Donatello came for him through the hallway, waving for him to come join them. The next act of this show would be happening in the dojo.

* * *

Wildcard might as well have had her own migratory cloud of confetti explosions, her excited eagerness to finally meet Sandro's mother and father was so visible. And _disarming._ She'd politely requested Leonardo's permission to be 'excused from lessons' of course, and now hopped up to stand before them, vibrating on the tip-toed tap-dance of anticipation.

"I'm Wildcard!" she'd greeted them both in a gush, and oh _boy_ was she Mini-Mikey in that moment. "Hi!"

Raphael was clearly unconvinced they needed any more orange in the family. "... Ah suppose that's as much a name as 'Rocksteady' or 'Bebop' evah was."

Wild wrinkled her nose. "Those are bad guys."

"Ayeah. They are," Raphael agreed, leaning forward a little and looking terribly unimpressed.

She drew back her posture, worried a toe bashfully against the dojo carpets, rubbed at the back of her neck and looked about aimlessly, and then at last gave a big shrug with both hands in the air. "Well you can call me Anastasia Hamilton, but I might blow raspberries every time I hear it. I'm allergic to my own pretentiousness."

Two separate people raised a single brow at her, which was all the more funny because Sandro could make that same exact face. _Speaking of Sandro._ She could feel her brother approaching like a frozen tempest, and twisted about to see him follow Donatello into the room.

Oh _boy_! He looked so incredibly dark and in-control, it was almost scary.

"Wait a second, can I talk to him first?" Raphael and April looked at each other, and then her. She held up a forefinger and thumb. "Just real quick?" April crossed her arms over her chest but nodded. "Thanks, hold on!" she lit out from before them, hurrying over to defrost her poor Yin.

Sandro's fists unlocked and he blinked rapidly as he looked down at her. She stood on her toes (close to him), and raised a hand to whisper beside his 'ear.' Sandro tilted his head to listen, squinted, scowled, and finally glared at her. Wildcard tilted her head to the side, leaned back and spread out her arms, giving him her best adorably confident smirk. _I can do this. You can do this._ He eyed her. She held his stare. His expression loosened up a little, and then at last he turned partially towards her—no longer presenting a staunch defensive front to his family!—and lifted his hand to whispered back.

Wild nodded hastily at his suggestions, and dimmed her smile to let him know she was earnest. _We can do this._

A smirk leaked through to _his_ lips. He raised a hand, she met it, they clasped each other's palms and knocked elbows, and then turned back to his parents. She hopped back up before them, and Sandro followed like a docile ocean wave behind her.

 _Better! Much better!_

"What was that?" April had to ask.

"A pep talk!" Wildcard glowed. "I had no pom poms, that was regrettable; usually I think of these things ahead of time! Speaking of which: can I do a magic trick?"

Raphael was growing a mite annoyed. "Ah'd kinda prefer if ya didn't make any _sudden movements_."

April nudged him like he was being ridiculous (which he wasn't; didn't she remember the knives she'd put in the ceiling?), but asked, "Right now?"

"Of course! It's already late!" Wildcard bit her lip through a big grin, tucked her hands behind herself, and then cautiously produced a full bouquet of twenty-four red gardenias, which she held up to the mother of her best friend. "Surprise! I heard you liked Red!"

"Oh." April woodenly accepted the bouquet, and glanced baffled to Raphael. "You shouldn't have." Her husband was too busy trying to figure out what other potentially dangerous objects Wild might have smuggled about somewhere on her person to display whether he'd caught the pun. _Curses!_

"You bought my mom _flowers?_ " Sandro wondered as Michelangelo came up beside her to lift up her arm and turn her this way and that, very obviously bewildered by where on earth that bouquet had been hiding. " _You_?"

"Sure! Me and dad were in the supermarket, and naturally I asked him what kind of flowers a classy boyfriend brings the mother of their new _squeeze_ on first meeting! Well, wouldn't ya know: After he finished howling with laughter on the floor of the produce aisle, he told me gardenias are the Mother's Day flower, and that I would probably get better results if I toned the flamboyance down one or five or seventy notches."

"Ah, I see. You're off to a _great_ start," Sandro complimented as he lifted an elbow and rested it on her head.

"Why _thank_ you, Princess! _H-hey! GYAAAHH!_ " She flailed at him as he affected to lean there. "Stop making fun of how short I am!"

"What? You? Short?" Sandro gave her a wide-eyed and innocent look. "I'd _never._ " He cleared his throat. " _Little_ brother." She punched his arm and he grinned wide instead of flinching.

April gave the flowers to Raphael (which was a fantastic image for Wildcard to treasure forever), so that she could step forward and address both of them. Sandro and Wild composed themselves and straightened to engage with her directly. April looked inquisitively between the two of them, and then finally asked: " _When_ did the two of you meet, exactly?"

Back to business then. "May," Wildcard answered. "Sorry I missed actual Mother's Day!" That was in May, right?

"I'm... sure your _actual_ mother was happy to have you," April answered a little tightly.

"I don't have a mother," Wildcard murmured soberly, and both parents looked straight at her. "I don't have much of anybody, just my dad. We moved here in February, and I met Sandro in May," she supplied informatively, _succinctly._ April frowned, but in a thoughtful fashion instead of a strictly disapproving one.

"How'd ya meet?" asked Raphael as he basketball-tossed the bouquet to Donatello.

"I heard gunshots," Wildcard explained, and paused to make sure no one thought she was running off on another wild tangent. Nope, everyone was listening. Okay, she and Sandro had practiced this: "I headed towards them, which I'm not supposed to do, but I wanted to get a peek at whatever trouble was going on. Normally you hear gunshots coming _from_ Cashew's, not heading past." Sandro nudged her foot. She slowed down. "Anyway, I got into an alleyway and was in for a surprise, because an enormous boy landed on a dumpster next to me with this adorable 'Ow.' It was very dark and I didn't get a good look at Sandro, but there was enough street light overhead for me to notice the evil ninjas dropping into the alleyway after him."

"'Evil Ninjas,'" April repeated doubtfully.

"Yo, Foot Clan _totally_ look like evil ninjas." Mikey spoke up in her defense.

"No, I wanna hear this whole story," Raphael interjected, stepping up to bat and gently easing his wife back with a glance and a shift of his shell. Then he looked down at Wildcard skeptically. "What happened after that?"

Wildcard looked up into the vibrantly golden and metallic eyes of her best friend's father for essentially the first time. Raphael was absolutely _enormous_ , and she was sort of in awe wondering just how much he must have _weighed._ His arms had a larger circumference than her waist. Was Sandro going to be _that big_ one day? Raphael wasn't just _muscular,_ he had a beautifully thick shell and broad wrists and hands; his skeleton was clearly sturdy, and fairly anchored all that immense bulk.

Sandro stepped slowly onto her toes, waking her up _just_ before her distraction would have transgressed beyond the length appropriate to a dramatic pause.

So she said: "I killed all three of them."

"Just like that?" Raphael prompted thickly, unperturbed by the hush which fell over everyone else.

"Yes," she agreed.

He leaned forward to address her more directly, ignoring Sandro. "Ya ran inta three random people in a pitch black alley alleyway, and put knives in em like ya pinioned them apples Leo had ya show off with earlier? No way a knowin' who they were, or what effin side they was on? Knowin' jack shit about _anythin'_ here?"

"I saw at least a man with a gun," she answered, subtly raising a hand to indicate Sandro should _stay behind her_. "And someone else who looked like they needed help."

"Coulda just as easily been th' other way around," Red-Turtle suspected, hemming out vision of anyone else by sheer size. "Coulda been the local superbrats ya killed, chasin' some high profile thief or serial killah. Point is, _you_ didn't know."

Wildcard never _knew;_ she flew by intuition. "Did you take me for a _good_ kid?" she wondered. Heavy brows furrowed at her. "I'm not. _Sandro_ is. I just don't like sitting on my hands."

Raphael's face twitched, his mouth curling in a sneer. He tilted his head to the side, like a twitching bull, and licked his lower beak ridge. "So why should anyone trust ya around _their_ kid, 'xactly?"

"I would step in front of a speeding train to push him clear of it."

"Zhat so?" he found the answer _cute_.

She stepped forward to get _right_ in his face. "Yeah. And if you ever, _ever_ hurt him again, I will hurt _you."_

 _"Wildcard,"_ Donatello breathed hoarsely, not at _all_ ready for the turn this conversation had taken, particularly as he had not been privy—before today—to her lethality. Michelangelo was very tense beside her. Leonardo didn't move from back beside the Sakura, where he'd been utterly silent and uninvolved.

Raphael himself didn't immediately say a word, nostrils flaring, metallic golden eyes intense. Then he drew a Sai, and spun the hilt up. "If ah evah do it again, _mouse_ ," he told her, "I'll lend ya this mahself."

* * *

Sandro was gone. Just gone. Consumed by blind adrenaline, reliving memories of enraged father barreling down on him, weapons drawn, roaring.

 _'Put ya kama where ya mouth is one more time, boy!'_

Sandro stood there behind his counterpart, sensing her presence but not really seeing anything, shaking down to the pits of his lungs, blind with his hands raised in the air and his fingers twitching, because if he had to acknowledge that his father was crouched down over her, leering inches from her, he was going to lose it.

 _You need to let her finish what she's started._

 _She's insane. She's insane, she's insane, she's insane. She's five feet tall and standing between *me* and *him*._

Sandro barely registered what words that were spoken, or that Wildcard and Raphael had both nodded in some form of unfathomable understanding. Sandro only knew that the altercation had ended only because he was able to receive her back from it. His fingers clamped down on her arms, and he shoved her behind himself with the length of his arm. He glared the _fear of god_ down into her over his shoulder, livid.

 _Never do that to me again. Never. Do something. Like That. To me. Again._

Wildcard winked at him. Winked.

 _I am going to kill you after this._

Sandro looked back to his family, shaking his hand and breathing thunderclouds. "I'm sorry," he said to all of them, his voice seething and heavy. "She's clearly a Chihuahua that's mistaken itself for a Mastiff."

"Dunno about that," Raphael said, and Sandro quickly met his eyes. Raphael glanced him up and down, and then tilted his chin up and smirked wide. "Three dead Foot says there's a bit of bite ta all the bark." Then he turned his head and glanced back at where April seemed visibly appalled and unsteady. " _Ich mag den rotznäsigen Gör_ ," he told her, in what sounded to Sandro like German.

Mom's eyes darted to him, her mouth pressing to a thin line. Then she slowly tilted her head, fixing Dad with a stare that said, 'Are you serious.'

" _Was? Sie hat Bälle,_ " Raphael added, still grinning to himself as he passed her and stood behind her. April's glare to followed him back over her shoulder, and then she quickly shook her head and turned an utterly unamused back to Sandro. Dad might have hidden his answer in a language Sandro didn't speak to give Mom the final say, but it looked like they'd gotten one parent on board.

Sandro breathed deep. _Here we go. My turn._ The feeling of his sibling's hand, pressing flat up against the back of his shell, was all the courage he needed.

"Let me see if I understand this," Mom began. "You were sneaking regularly topside since May, and _Wildcard_ here was your accomplice?" Sandro nodded. "And what did you two get up to, exactly?" she asked him, clearly prepared to hear a great many things she didn't like.

Sandro cocked his head to the side. "About a B minus," he said.

His mother blinked, startled. _Bingo. Let's do this._ "What?"

"My English grade!" Wild piped up, and Sandro explained matter-of-factly: "She has a really bad reading disability and finally fessed up to me her dad pulled her out of school because her grade tanked to a D. I told her I'd tutor her if she'd pre-grade my math and science homework. Not gonna lie, compound interest day was a humiliating day; she can do it in her head, I struggle even with a calculator."

Mom's mouth opened, but it was clear she had no idea where to start expressing her incredulity, so she looked back to Donatello. Wild chirped something about this boding ill for his future investment portfolios. Sandro rolled his shoulders. _Got this._

Donatello (who still had Wildcard's bouquet, which was probably making her very smug), cleared his throat. "Despite coming off as an air-headed floozy on first meeting, Anastasia is actually very clever. They usually do their schoolwork together on the couch or dojo floor."

"How long has she been getting invited here?" April asked.

"Couple weeks. Mom, don't look at Donnie. Look at me," Sandro said. "I can tell you what you want to know."

"Are you going to answer me with a joke again?" she wondered, off-balance.

"Wasn't a joke. Wild and I hung out topside pretty much daily, so we did a lot of stuff together. We mostly stayed in the safe parts of the docks, walked, talked about life, ate food, climbed around on rooftops. She's never been formally trained in a martial art, so we'd find some place to spar. I'd put on my best Asian Parent voice and tell her that her LA grade was 'much dishonor.' Every once in awhile we'd sneak in someplace."

His mom fully turned to him, seeing as she _was_ finally getting the full story out of him. "What sort of places?"

Sandro sniffed thoughtfully, because there had been a lot of them. "I learned how to ice skate," he picked.

"We left maxed out scores on the DDR machine there!" Wild agreed.

"I'm sorry, who left a max score and who didn't?" Sandro asked, lifting a hand beside his 'ear.'

"Oh, shut up, you only beat me by one combo! You didn't even let me finish my nachoes, you abused my love of cheese!"

"Uh-huh. And who signed the top of the leader board with W-L-D-S-U-X? Yeah. You just think about that next time you decide to put Orange Crush and Root Beer in the same cup. Or call me 'Princess Elsa' an entire afternoon while repeatedly knocking me over."

"You kept trying to clothesline me, that was your own fault! And to think I went to that first aid counter and got _ice packs_ and _non-Frozen-themed_ _stickers_ for you after you fell."

Sigh. "Maybe you just need to _Let It Go,_ Ana."

Wild's jaw dropped. Sandro grinned slyly back at her, from ear to ear at her. _Booya._

"Okay, the ice skating rink." His mom crossed her arms tightly. "And what else?"

Sandro's breath caught as he looked back to April. _She's about to shut me down._ His eyes widened and he repressed the urge to grin, because that would have been crazy. Instead he cleared his throat and empathized with her:

"I'm sorry, Mom, I know I'm in trouble and I don't want to come off disrespectful by nattering on like this nutcase," he jerked his thumb back to indicate his sibling. "So what order do you want to hear about our escapades in? I'm not gonna hide anything. Do you want like a list, or stuff about each place, or maybe just how we pulled it off?"

April studied him with that disapproving look on her face and then looked to the floor as she breathed deep and carefully considered and chew over her response. Only she wasn't thinking about his actual _question,_ was she?

 _Here it comes, here it comes._ Sandro was ready, and that grin was twitching. _C'mon. I dare you. Drop me. Grab the reigns._

"Sandro I'm just a little shocked," his mother disapproved, and he felt his anticipation bloom. "I mean I thought we'd already had this conversation, but what you did by going topside was both _extremely dangerous_ and forbidden, and the way you're speaking so casually about risking your life makes me concerned that maybe you don't really appreciate the severity of what you've done."

Some sort of cosmic karma had just given him a second crack this. "Just because it was risky doesn't mean I didn't have a great time, but I know I needed to be grounded-"

" _Grounded_? I don't know if that worked very well, since your 'friend' was here anyway. You almost sound like you'd do it again, and that's honestly worrying me, honey."

Sandro laughed. "Na, I won't. Unless you give me _permission,_ of course."

Mom balked, not having anticipated his flippancy. "That's _never_ going to happen. Young man, are you even-"

" _Never_?" he grinned. "Like not even when I'm forty? Gosh, it'll sure be hard to be a world-class master ninja from my bedroom, but I _guess_ I could try..."

Her eyes had widened, and her mouth thinned to a line. That was a doom face right there. _Bring it, mom._ He didn't even notice Raphael tense and step forward in the hesitant notion of helping him. "I thought we talked about that, _too,"_ April began in a frowning murmur, but her voice escalated and grew sharp, "About school, about your future and—!"

"—No ' _we'_ didn't effin _talk!_ " he laughed angrily over top of her; heated, loud, energized, _bigger than himself_. " _You_ talked! Ya talked _at_ me, like ya always do, and I stabbed mah nails inta mah hands and smoothed out mah damn face; And Ah nodded and surrendered and said whatevah would let me inta a cold showah fastah, cause _nothin'_ —absolutely NOTHIN' Ah evah say ta ya!—makes a dent!"

He expected his mother to interject and argue with him, to try and keep him bridled, but what Leo had said to her must have stuck because she leaned back an inch, looking confused and spooked. Raphael didn't shout or hit him, either. So Sandro got to continue:

"Na mattah how Ah try ta tell ya what _I want,_ or what I value 'r believe in, ya've already figuahed everahthin out yaself before ya even talk ta me! Ah can't do _shit_ but end da conversation as fast as humanly possible! But dat doesn't mean ya right, it just means I've no damn idea how ta talk ta ya! How ta tell ya what's goin on with my life, who I am, or that Ah've a new friend who means the _world_ ta me! Ahm a _ninja,_ Mom! I'm a Teenage. Mutant. _Ninja._ _TURTLE._ There's only so many people in the whole damn world who won't _scream_ at the sighta me, much less wanna be mah friend, visit mah sewah, throw ninja stars at me, _and_ grade mah effin' math homework! So Ahm effin' sorry Ah'm not _more sorry_ I ain't alone anymore!"

Mom didn't immediately say anything. His father was making a _very_ strange face at him. Leo looked to be cleaning his nails. Mikey was covering a grin. Sandro blinked, and glanced to Donatello, but his uncle was looking at the ground as if going 'oof, there it is' or something of that nature.

Wildcard exploded with laughter and Sandro glanced at her in alarm. "The accent, bro!" she sputtered through laughs, and his face heated with mortification as he realized what had everyone else acting so strange. "I-I'm sorry that was _so epic!_ But usually have to tease _so hard_ to get that out of you! H-he," she looked up to his parents, "he does it when he's _aggravated_! Normally I have to fart on him, or pin a flower in his mask and suggest he make a career change to Geisha or something! He's-!"

Sandro grabbed hold of her and yanked her into a headlock. "D'ya wanna lose teeth!?" No talk of hookers, daughter in laws, or Donatello's legs next to Mom! She'd _practiced this!_

Several people moved towards him, but Mikey raised up both hands and stalled them with pleas that sounded like 'let them, let them!' Wild herself squealed laughingly, twisting and fighting. "Ow! Oww! Staahp bro, it's totally funny!"

"Dhen it's gonna be _hilarious_ when ya smilin' through a broken jaw! Get back here! Lemme kill ya fastah!" He twisted after her, but she managed to writhe free. He spun after her, and she darted around him in his shadow, her hands on his shell. He spun the other way. She redirected. Realizing he was never going to beat a person with future foresight at this game, he stopped, straightened, and lifted his hands in furious exasperation.

Wild pounced him from behind, clambering up his shell and clawing her way over his shoulders and hugging his neck from behind. "Hi!" she chirped beside him. Sandro gave her a very dirty look, but then huffed out a breath and threw up his hands.

"Alright, that's it. I'm _done_. I need a break from you. What time even is it?" he muttered, planting a hand on his hip as he reached behind him to grab her phone. "Good God. Is it seriously just eight fifteen?" He swiped, ignoring the massive scene he'd just made and how everyone was staring at him.

"Looks like it! Ooh, see this place? Has phenomenal cheesecake bro. _To die for_ levels of mouthwatering." She pushed herself up higher to balance on his shoulders.

"I really could go for cheesecake right now. S'it deliver?"

"Regrettably _no._ "

"Well _there_ go all my hopes and dreams."

"Can't win em all! Say, how do you even know my pin number?"

"Seen it enough. It's not like it's very clever."

"Gasp! You take that back!"

He rolled his eyes and flicked her mask tails out of his face. "You only think its clever because it spells a word upside-down. Upside-down is exactly the way anyone who accidentally oversaw you input it would be able to read it, stupid."

"...Why are you _always_ right?!"

"Cosmic balance, remember? You're persuasive; I'm _correct_. Wild, seriously, why do you have every single pizza place in the entire greater New York, Newark, Hoboken, and Jersey City metropolitan area in here? You need, like, _four_. Six if you want to roll a dice for it. Yeah, hey, is this Gino's?" Sandro asked as he pulled the phone beside his head. "I'd like to place an order for twelve extra large pizzas."

"Are..." Mom finally found her voice, "are you seriously _ordering_ _pizza_ right now...?"

Sandro shuttered his eyes at her and lifted up a finger before his mouth to indicate, 'hush now I'm on the phone, be polite.' "Yeah it's the regular guys, sorry I'm using a different number. We'd like the regular mushroom, marshmallow, nine-cheese, and supreme doubles, but add in a plain cheese stuffed crust and then for the remaining three I'm gonna hand you over to my sister for highly complex instructions, so take notes. She's super picky and may be indirectly influencing the tip."

He tossed the phone in the air, and Wild caught it and brought it to her ear to explain her Veggie Mediterraneans as she slid off his shell.

Mom walked up to him, her face disbelieving as she reached out to touch his arm, and Sandro turned to look down at her. "Where is this coming from?" she whispered. "I don't even _recognize_ you, acting like this. Sandro-"

"I'm pretty sure ordering pizza is standard operating procedure for literally everything in this family," Sandro assessed sassily in a way Raphael usually would have never, ever, _ever_ let him get away with, as he turned about to face his uncle Michelangelo, picked up the older turtle's hand, and plopped it on top of Wildcard's head. "Please take this and keep me from killing it. At least until my food arrives and I've eaten half of hers."

"Sure!" Mikey chirped, leaning over to snatch Wildcard up and toss her up onto his shoulder and shell. April put her hands on her hips and eyed Michelangelo disbelievingly as if saying 'Not you too!?' Mikey giggled and gave a bashful shrug. "Yo, April, I'm totally sorry but you have no idea how much I love this child. Mini's my jam!"

"Your _jam?_ You're holding me like an old-fashioned boombox!" Wild laughed as she placed her phone briefly to her shoulder to muffle the reciever. "Does that mean you want me to make music, maybe sing a-?"

"NO!" both Sandro and Mikey shouted in horror, and Mikey clapped a hand over her mouth. "You singing is like listening to someone murder a rooster!" Sandro added, and then turned an innocent look to his mom. "By the way, can she stay for lunch? Pretty please?"

April gawped at him a long moment. She looked around at her family members, and all five turtles who didn't seem to be taking this seriously any more, and _who had already decided for her_. She threw up her arms, turned away, and walked out of the room. Raphael called out to her, and Donatelo frowned worriedly down at her as she passed. Sandro stared after her, a vindictive and victorious grin curled up the corner of his mouth. _How's it feel?_

"Hey, um," Wildcard piped up from Mikey's shoulder. "Yin?" He looked up to her, and was surprised to see she wasn't more _excited_ or _angry_ or _happy_ or something! Instead, Yang looked very troubled. His elated feeling shrank. She glanced towards the hall, and toward a concerned Raphael and Donatello; and then looked back to him. Mikey echoed her wide-eyed frown. Sandro pressed his beak tightly together. He was still for a moment. Then turned and bolted after his mother.

* * *

"Wait," Sandro mumbled as he caught up with his mom. "Wait," he skid to a halt before her, reaching down to grasp her hands and to worry his thumbs into the crease of her clenched fists. She stopped, jaw still set, teeth grit, shoulders shaking slightly. She didn't look up at his face. "Mom," he pleaded.

"What... just happened in there?" she asked quietly. "It was all over the place."

"I'm... I just..." Sandro fumbled, weaving his weight hesitantly from foot to foot. "I lost my temper."

"Your _temper_?" She looked up at him, but her fists did loosen enough for him to actually hold her hands.

Sandro searched her face, trying to reconcile that plethora of very conflicting things he felt against emotions he wasn't sure he could recognize or identify clearly in her. "Do you... actually want to talk with me?" he rasped pleadingly. "Without an audience...?"

"I don't know..." His mom stared back at him just as searchingly. "Are you going to do whatever..." she gestured behind her, " _that_ was again?"

"That?" he asked, and leaned back a degree, considering. "That was _confidence_ ," he said. "Having a new baby wouldn't make me young again, mom, I... I'm growing up into whatever 'that' is."

"I didn't mean that," she murmured with a wince, reaching up for his face. "That's not why we asked you, Sandro. Please, we... we think of you _every day,_ we miss behind here _too_. We _love_ you, and I'm sorry we-we didn't see things from your perspective. But what you just did wasn't-"

"-under your control, or what you wanted, but is sort of what I _am,_ " Sandro breathed, recoiling a little from the touch at his face. His mother hesitated and mouthed, 'No,' but he decided to talk: "I _was_ being rude. I was mad at you. And it came out in fits and starts. But that's sorta how I'm like when... when we're alone and no one's judging. Tart. Mean. Smug. Calm. Until she bothers me, and then Loud. I had no idea any of that was true, until I had no one around me but another kid. And then... I was the biggest person present; I... mattered."

" _Mattered?_ " April blinked at him, and Sandro begged her to understand, murmuring urgently:

"Having her around, all of a sudden, was like having a _hole filled_. Like finding out I'd had a twin I'd been separated from at birth—that's how _much_ I just want to see her, to have her at my back, to know she's... someplace I can _get_ to. I lied about where I was, but I was in complete denial I'd ever be caught, because I was so _scared_ of losing her. I _want_ to keep her, _please_ let me keep her." He ducked his head. "And if you tell me I can't have her as my guest, I'll respect you, but please, _please_ , just let me have Ninjitsu practice at the same time as her, so I can just _see_ her. Just that, and I-I'll be okay, I'll make that be enough, just _please_."

April was silent for a long moment, and he didn't dare look up at her.

"Was... was what your uncle Leonardo said... true?" she asked him.

He swallowed. "Do you actually want to know?"

"If it's true. Sandro." Hands pulled from his and touched his shoulders and face. "Sandro, you're my boy. I want to understand. If something's wrong, I want to _understand_."

He wasn't sure he'd successfully be able to tell her. "Will you _listen_? I mean like all the way: like not t-talking at all," that was so insulting, "so-so I can think about what I'm saying, and... figure it out."

"With...without talking to you about your feelings or where they come from, without asking... questions?" she wondered.

Yin looked up at his mother.

April stared at him a long moment. Then she looked down, and reached into her pocket. She drew out her phone—the cornerstone tool of her profession, she sometimes called it—and she swiped and tapped and then handed it to him, and took his hands again. She'd turned on a voice recording app, like one would for an important interview, and yet given him control over it. He looked from it to her, and she squeezed his hands and nodded.

Tingles shot through his chest, and he straightened and looked about for a room. Donatello's lab. That would give them privacy (particularly from Wildcard), and it wasn't really anything Donnie didn't know.


	70. Nasty, Wicked Sort of Cute

[Note from the Author] Hey guys! I'm sure you noticed this update is... late! I've decided the solution to my writer's block is to post _smaller chapters._ That way I don't sit on material for weeks or stress out about perfect chapter structure.

* * *

Leonardo padded quietly up from where he'd been uninvolving himself beside the Sakura.

"I think that went well," he mentioned serenely.

All three of his brothers slowly turned from the hallway to look at him. " _Seriously,_ " Donatello reproached. Raphael, who had not been altogether happy watching Blue call out his wife's parenting skills, cracked his knuckles. Leo gave only the latter a small, apologetic bow of his head.

"Could it have gone much better than a conclusion in which he and his mother spoke with one another?" he added rhetorically.

"Pizza's gonna be here in an hour!" Wildcard tucked her phone away. "Sunshine, can I go with you to pick it up?" (And meet the pizza lady!?) Mikey hesitated in fear, excitement, and surprise at this idea.

"You have lessons, Kinpōge-kun," Sensei interjected as he turned away. "There is room to be excused for serious family conversations. The same does not go for pizza pick-up duty."

Wildcard's skin prickled. "We're going to eat right afterwards anyway!" she complained. "Why can't I go? Are you going to deny us both fresh pizza _again_ for some reason?" Grr, if Leo just told her 'Because I said so,' he was going to get a super contrary and rebellious pupil hiding from him in the rafters in a super big hurry. That'd teach him a lesson!

Instead, her sensei blinked languidly as if to organize his words, before succinctly replying, "Family members who remain ill-accustomed to you will be happier if you do not know our delivery drop-off points. Come along."

Oh? True! Darn... Meeting the Gino's Pizza Lady would just have to wait for a more auspicious day. "Haaaiii Sennseeeii," she droned obediently, as she got a foot up on the top of Mikey's shell. Orange Turtle steadied her curiously.

"Child," her annoyed Ninjitsu Master interrupted. "Just because I am not looking at you does not mean I cannot tell you are up to-" Wildcard pounced!

Her knees came down hard on his shell as she relied on her training gear to soak the impact, and grabbed hard for his shoulders to catch the cotton under her fingers. With his skin and plastron so modestly covered, sticking a firm landing on him was a challenge, and she nearly overbalanced and went right over his head. Teehee! That woulda been problematic, she might have fallen straight into Raphael, who would _not_ have been happy!

"Excuse me," her flummoxed Sensei protested without actually flinching or moving at all. "Why was this necessary?"

"Why? It's my god-given and most sacred duty, Sensei!" Wild chirped as she swiveled herself around and pretended it was easy to seat herself sidesaddle on the ridge of his shell without falling. " _Annoying you!_ Of course I know it will be a difficult and possibly life-long quest, with many long and unappreciated hours of labor, toiling against what may at times feel like impossible odds...!"she warbled melodramatically. "But I am determined to persevere amidst all adversity! You can count on me!"

"I doubt that will be as amusing an expenditure of your time as you seem to believe," Sensei replied. "Regardless it is proof you require a lecture on the topic of personal space."

Wild drew her hands together in a mimicry of his meditative pose, sagely intoning in a deep voice: "Fear not, Leonardo... Have you not the patience of snow-covered meadows and the self-control of an inland sea? What can all the vain mischief of a single candle do unto you?"

Raphael and Mikey spun to stare wide-eyed at each other and then simultaneously busted out laughing, and Leo gave a tremendous sigh and dislodged her with little more than a twitch, sending her from her precarious perch to tumble a long fall she'd fortunately been ready for, so she squealed a victorious, "Booyakasha!" as she went, and then bounded off to to take her position at the edge of the dojo in seiza, innocent and proper as an angel.

"Clear my dojo," Sensei muttered at his brothers, "or sit on the sidelines like proper guests."

* * *

"Sensei kicked my tail, Donnie!" whined a child he was not quite sure what to think of—or whether to trust—after some of the things she'd done and revealed that day. "And I don't even _have_ a tail..."

Wildcard appeared to have stumbled straight out of the bathroom as she padded into Donatello's kitchen with her hair still wet. She had temporarily discarded her costume for some slightly over-sized soft clothes which hung a little askance off her shoulder, and she was barefoot as she passed the kitchen table; She looked harmless, disheveled, and even tinier than normal. "I see that," Donatello raised a brow from where he was transferring flowers into a vase. "You were definitely asking for it."

"I so was," she clarified, in case anyone was confused. "It just means I won and he lost."

Donatello chuckled, amused at her persistence. "Do you want electrolytes or an aspirin?"

Already plenty curious, and in an unexpectedly jovial mood, Red Turtle sat up from where he'd been peening his Sai, and leered down over to intercept her with a grin. Wildcard slowed at the attention and blinked curiously up at him. "Oh hi!" she greeted as innocently as if she truly hadn't noticed him sitting there previously. "You're _enormous._ How much can you bench?"

"Depends on my mood," Red answered slyly. "And _you_ , Mouse?"

Donatello raised a brow, looking hesitantly from Raphael to Widlcard. The latter remained wholly unintimidated. In fact, by the subtle and inquisitive rounding of her eyes, she was completely enthralled staring up at his body language.

"I don't actually know! Sandro said kids our age aren't supposed to lift weights yet," Wild answered thoughtfully before of course appending, "while lobbing a dumbbell at me. Apparently I can be felled by thirty pounds?"

"He random threw one of my weights at ya?"

"No, of course not, he threw one of the _recreation center's_ weights at me."

Raphael tilted his head, interest piqued but countenance growing a little dangerous in the undertow. "The rec center, eh? A brightly lit, tightly packed buildin, with turnstiles and security guards at the exits?"

Wildcard registered she was being called upon to justify this, and snapped her fingers before delivering: "Our official story, if anyone ever started staring at and whispering him, was that he had this severe genetic skin disorder called _harlequin ichthyosis_ about which he was extremely self conscious about being out in public, and _how dare_ they stare at him, they should be _ashamed_ of themselves...!"

Donatello coughed in surprise, earning a glance from both of them. "Harlequin Ichthyosis?" he inquired with a slow disbelieving grin. "Was it your intention to provide high octane nightmare fuel for anyone skeptical enough of your claims to actually Google it?"

Wildcard cackled maniacally and bridged her fingers together like a mad scientist. "Ah, Donnie-Senpai, I have so much evil in such a tiny me! Sometimes I haven't enough room to contain it—it slips out the cracks!"

"That's actually very clever," Donatello mused aloud. "Would explain a ski-mask even in summertime. Would explain baldness, undeveloped external ears, and a flatted nose..."

"Well turns out we never needed it anyway," Wildcard threw up her arms with a baffled shrug. "Like people didn't even blink twice at him. Loud, annoying brats with shy, possibly disabled, gentle-giant older brothers just makes perfect sense to people. Weird, eh?"

"You spent a lot of time watching people's reactions to him?" Donatello wondered.

"Of _course_ ," she scoffed and looked ever so lightly offended. "I had to keep him safe, right? If we walked into a crowd, sometimes he couldn't even lift his head to look around. Just had to stick on my heel like glue and hope I was paying enough attention not to get us hit by a car. Omnipresent threat in this city by the way, _Geeze Louise_. We visited a lot of small hole-in-the-wall restaurants and pizza parlors, I had to make sure no one ever bumped into him."

"Wouldn't ita been safer ta have left him _outside_?" Raphael asked.

"Well, you'd think so, right?!" Wild spun back to him with widening eyes. "But turns out a lone six foot dude in a winter coat loitering outside a building in June is way, way, way more suspicious than one tagging along with his head down behind a blondie this cute," she fanned herself. "Made _him_ cute too, I think, cause while he was meekly pointing out his Subway sandwhich toppings, the middle-aged ladies behind the counter would always flirt with him to cheer him up, and that was _hilarious_."

"I was wondering what he was eating," Donnie commented. "His low calorie intake was how I knew something was wrong."

"D'aww, no worries Donnie, I fed the growing turtle boy!" she giggled, stretching her arms behind her head with playfully half-shut eyes. "Gotta make sure he gets as big as his daddy; If I can't be the tall badass one, he sure better be!" She suddenly stifled a yawn, pressing a hand over her mouth. "Oh _man._ I hope lunch gets here soon, I'm already outta gas." She padded past Raphael and went to climb in an oversize chair. "Not gonna lie, this morning was terrifying."

"Which part, 'xactly?" Raphael squinted over at her.

"The First Lady," she answered, pillowing her arms on the top and plopping her head on them. "She didn't like me _at all_ , did she?"

"You weren't exactly putting your best foot forward," Donatello reprimanded her as he set down a Gatorade and an ibuprofen beside her arm. He'd keep the bigger points of his critique reserved until the weekend was over—the parts where she'd proven herself _dangerous_. "What happened? You threw out half of _everything_ we planned, after practicing for weeks."

"Before I left yesterday, Sandro told me to be myself," she confessed a little bashfully. "Said it would make him sure of who _he_ was, and that he didn't care that I wasn't normal, because that made me _irreplaceable._ Now I ask you, Donnie-Senpai, who is going to argue with being told they're 'irreplaceable?'" He nudged her elbow with the Gatorade to get her attention and she peeked up from her arms. "Oh. Thank you."

"I typically avoid recommending last minute, drastic, unshared changes to plans," he told her.

Raphael snorted. "Because you're the great gatekeeper on what we oughta hear?"

"No," Donatello sighed heavily, annoyed. "Clearly she can say whatever she wants _to you,_ the two of you appear equally fluent in _machismo._ "

"Can I just interrupt," Wildcard did, "to say that _that sentence_ was an honor to have been a part of." Donatello rolled his eyes. Raphael smirked and shrugged, apparently distracted from his prior complaint. "Hey—is San _still_ talking to his mom?"

"Yes," Donnie worried his fingers together, but then turned and glared sternly down at her. "And _do not_ disturb them."

"Yeah I'd never," Wildcard grimaced wide. "I'm _clearly_ incompetent at speaking to girls, and I don't like to be seen doing anything I'm not already fantabulous at."

He squinted at her, shook his head, and sighed. "Sometimes, when I'm not imagining how likely you are to commit arson one day," Donnie mentioned as he went to get that vase of flowers, water it, and place it on the table, "I vaguely comprehend why you appear to remind Michelangelo of me."

Leonardo picked that moment to join them, walked around the table as Donatello was making the Gardenia's fanned out and presentable. There, Blue Turtle paused, turned, leaned over, and obtained one of Wildcard's bare feet.

She blinked baffled up at him from the seat-back and muttered, "Er, can I help you, Sensei?"

"You appear to have misplaced proper indoor wear."

Donatello raised a brow. He and Michelangelo were usually barefoot and simply rinsed off their soles at the door.

Wildcard was apparently too sleepy to remember that, but her face screwed up incredulously nonetheless. "Yeah well newsflash, Sensei, your student is poor, and five of her six or seven pairs of socks would be the laundry today if they weren't pasted all over her bedroom floor and hanging off doorknobs because she's a complete slob. She wasn't expecting surprise weekend lessons. Sorry."

"Hmm," was Leo's comment as he released her heel and simply drifted out of the kitchen again.

Raphael watched him go. "Has he been actin' weird lately, or is it just...?"

"It's not just you," Donatello completed with a sigh. "He's been oddly personable lately, but half of everything he does seems to come out of nowhere. Wildcard, I have a question for _you_ , one that's been nagging at me. Why did _you_ agree to Leonardo's offer to study Ninjitsu under him? It sounds like your own personal form of _hell._ "

Wildcard busted out laughing. "Purple Turtle knows me! Well, because flustering you is like shooting fish in a barrel. Successfully flustering Leo is like earning a lifetime achievement reward for excellence in pranking. It's an order of magnitude more difficult, but that sort of makes the victory more prestigious."

Donatello squinted at her. "Like shooting fish in a barrel?" he asked dryly.

She gestured to the Gardenias. "Who ended up holding who's bouquet today? Hmm? Exactly. Who calculated that was likely to happen? Yeah. Just wait until Valentines Day and I show up with a bouquet of lavender roses and a box of extra dark liquid-center truffles, and present them to you right in front of all your family members." She winked and clicked her tongue twice in a 'check it out!' sound.

Donatello planted his hands on his hips. "I thought we trained you not to do this."

"In front of April!" she appended with a big grin. "Nobody said I couldn't at any other time!"

Purple sawed his beak but had to know: "I'll bite. How in god's name do you have any idea I might like dark chocolate truffles?"

"Your palette," she tapped the table and pointed at him with a very knavish smirk twitching at her lips. Nobody orders salmon and portabellas on a pizza with the sauce light on oregano who doesn't like rich, savory, melt-on-your-tongue flavors. Your strawberry preserves have rhubarb, balsamic, and black pepper to correct for over-sweetness. You prefer your eggs poached and suck the yolks out first before eating the whites—which is adorable, by the way—and whenever Mikey's cooking breakfast and fries them, you cut off any crisped sections on the edges, which most people think is the best part. You're also the only American I've ever seen who doesn't actually want milky, weak, slightly burnt coffee and genuinely prefers dark, bold flavored roasts like Ethiopian Harrarr. You probably like full-bodied red wine, don't grill meat without a proper marinara, get really picky about your gravy and mashed potatoes consistency at Thanksgiving time, only heat your marshmallows up to their melting point and not their browning point when making s'mores, love custard, enjoy Lombardy dishes, and get wet dreams over an idealized incarnation of the perfect tiramisu."

Donatello sat back against the counter, eyes wide, face slack, and gaped at her.

"Boom!" Wildcard dusted off her hands, grinning boyish and sly. "I would be the best girlfriend ever. If only I was fifteen years older!" She sighed dramatically and turned about to lean an elbow on the table, only to discover an absolutely perplexed Raphael blinking between the two of them. "Oh hi again!" Although he hadn't gone anywhere or returned. "I can annoy anyone, it's my special ability."

"Is she hitting on you?" Raphael wondered up at Purple.

Donatello looked to his older brother with a martyred expression. "It think shamelessly hitting on people is one of the only ways she knows of to be friendly," Purple told him. "Which is surely proof she's defective, and reminds me of someone. But her favorite victim is unarguably _me._ "

"Ha! Anyone else would have told me to back off by now!" Wildcard cackled. "Donnie just does these slow, fantastic, Jean Luc Picard grade face-palms, and then sighs melodramatically like he's the most beleaguered person in the universe! It's great!"

"Do you flirt with Leonardo?"

"Nooooo," Wild shook her head and waved both hands. "Well slightly, naturally _,_ I don't think I know how _not_ to flirt, and he's very handsome I guess, but not in any calculated or evil manner and probably no more than I do with Mikey."

"You _don't_ flirt with Michelangelo," Donatello realized.

"Ew, no, that would be creepy! Mikey hugs me when I'm feeling devastated by the universe and like all my mojo is gone! I can't contaminate a relationship of such platonic purity!" Donnie raised a skeptical brow, and she looked scandalized by his disbelief. "Egads. Okay, _see here, mister Hamato,_ I only harass you for two reasons. First of all, you strongly dislike and do not touch me, which ironically makes flirting with you completely harmless and excellent practice!" she counted on her fingertips. "And second of all, I find you the most attractive. Tall, lithe, exceptionally intelligent, highly educated, caustically tempered, skeptical, arrogant, ever so slightly effeminate, and mildly neurotic. It's like a recipe book for the sapiosexual and/or gray ace 'Most Attractive Man of the Year' awards!

Donatello settled back into one of those facepalms.

Wildcard grinned radiantly at Raphael. "What'd I tell ya! I can make anybody uncomfortable, it's a gift!"

"...Na sure Ah'd call that a 'gift.'"

"Then it's a questionably useful and/or ethical ability!" she re-labeled, only to perk up as the front door unlatched. "Sunshine!" she bolted from the table, all sleepiness gone, to go and tackle and/or help Orange turtle with the pizza.

Raphael blinked after her. Donatello came up beside him and sighed heavily, still with a hand over his face. "So that's your son's best friend," Purple mentioned after a moment. "An absolute disaster."

"Dunno," Raphael reflected, and Donnie glanced over at him to see him smirking, "she's a nasty, wicked sort of cute."

" _Cute._ " Donatello stated in appalled disbelief.

Raphael shrugged and glanced up at him a little worriedly. "Course it's... extremely obvious why he was apprehensive about introducin' her to his mom."

Well. Like father like son...? Raphael and Casey Jones; Sandro and Wildcard. Donatello sank his weight back on his heels and sighed. "I wonder how that conversation's going..."

"Think we should check on em?" Raphael asked, apparently needing the advice. _Apparently_ the two of them—Purple and Red—were on the same side again. Donatello wasn't sure how he felt about that, about how quickly Raphael had been forgiven for attacking Sandro, but shook his head unknowingly at the question instead of in any disapproval of his brother.

"I'm hoping he's pouring his heart out," Donnie finally said. "It seems like he may have wanted to for a very long time, may have been holding a lot of things in... I don't want to interrupt that."

Raphael let out a breath of air through his nose and quietly nodded.


	71. A Sample of a Lifetime

[Author's Note: Sorry this took so long! Furthermore, sorry this chapter originally posted with a bunch of HTML chunk crammed in, that was really frustrating when I first saw what had happened and it took hours and hours to fix despite me immediately updating a fixed version of the chapter]

* * *

Once in the lab, Sandro needed a little distance from his mother's questioning stare, enough room to pace his thoughts by. He sat down at a table behind Donatello's computer chair. He didn't look straight at her as she sat across from him.

There was so much, so many things, a ton of feeling, but none of it was organized for purposes of expression, and panic gripped him that he'd say all the wrong things first, lose her attention, go in a tangent in a useless direction, and fail to remember key examples necessary to convince her of the validity of what he'd been going through. Shell, for a second he couldn't remember _any_ examples!

What did he need to say?

Despite not wanting Wildcard's commentary, Sandro seriously wanted one of her hugs right now, or even just the backup o f one warm hand on his shell. He decided to focus on memories of those things—on his friendship with her—instead of scrambling for purchase on the slippery issue of what exactly his mom had done so horribly wrong. For half the reason this was so hard to discuss was because his mother's error had been _subtle_ —a misunderstanding of what was most important—and yet the impact it had left on Sandro was immense and long, long, _long_.

He sucked in a slow, deep breath.

"I feel like I'm obligated to love you unconditionally, and no one has ever put the burden of satisfying the underlying criteria for that on anyone's shoulders but mine."

 _Sweet Jesus, Sandro, what did you just say?_

"I've been getting more and more trapped for years and I couldn't communicate to anyone—even myself, I talked _myself_ out of 'believing' I was unhappy!—because that's not how it's 'supposed to be.' I'm _supposed_ to have this strong relationship with you. But you know what? I don't. I have no bond with you whatsoever, and I _hate_ it. I hate that you aren't here, that Raphael isn't here, that I have no memories— _none—_ of playing with you. And I _resent_ that the two of you live your own life in New York, a life I'm not a part of, that work and money are more important than me. Everyone justifies them as being _for_ me, that's absolutely not how it feels, it strongly feels like I'm the afterthought. I'm so frustrated with you, and I've been frustrated so long, I can't interpret anything you do as genuine"

 _Shit shit shit. Don't look at her face. Don't look at her face._

"Now, logically, I know your feelings towards me have no reason to be fake—no reason to be anything other than what they're presented as: that you love me and care about me—but none of your expressions of affection translate successfully across to my side of the relationship anymore. Maybe because I'm getting older, and you're still tuned to me being a _child_. Donnie reminded me you've been there half of my life. Well, nice. Great work. But you were gone by the time I was making any lasting memories.

"You feel distant and plastic, and it never feels like you have a right to intervene when you do. Like you have no _right_ to argue what's best for me, because you don't actually know me; no _right_ to tell my uncles 'no,' because they do know me _;_ no _right_ to even punish Raphael for attacking me, because even though sometimes I hate his guts and swear he hates mine, at least there's some kind of relationship there.

"You affect to worry about me but it feels like you're reading off a t-teleprompter, like it's all fake. Because, you know who's actually the one who worries about me every single day, all the days you're not there? Donnie. You know who bandages me up? Donnie. You know who prepares my lunch and fusses over my shell and makes sure I eat my vitamins? _Donnie."_

 _AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!_

"When you dared to get angry at him for 'usurping' your authority—stealing _me_ from you?— _I_ _hated you._ Because you and Dad were the ones who were supposed to make me feel secure, supposed to be _my caretakers,_ and you _dropped the ball. And_ now you really do have _no right_ to want to _take_ my trust in and affection for 'the nanny' as _your due,_ like you _earned_ it, like it was 'stolen' from you _. He_ earned it. Shell, 'Nanny' busted his ass off . And he was always repeatin' praises about ya, ad nauseum, trying to preserve my faith in _you_.

"But that only screwed me worse, cause for years I haven't been able to talk to anyone about this,because _no one_ let me criticize you, and everyone always reminds me how much you 'love me,' and I felt like I was crazy for maybe harboring anything other than _pure blind adoration_ for you. So you think I should have talked to my actual parents instead of my uncles? Dad screams me into the dirt if I get even slightly uppity, and _you don't let me finish what sentences_. I finally got an opportunity to stand outside myself, to review footage of a discussion with you where I was doing everything in my power to be a perfectly submissive, ultra-well-behaved good kid, and still explain myself, and you didn't even listen to me, you just listened for talking points like my feelings were some debate opponent you needed to crush; you drew every conclusion about me without my input, like I'm unnecessary except to illustrate where you've 'failed' by continuing to struggle against you.

"When I impress you, I feel like I'm away at boarding school listening as my wealthy disinterested parent waxes on full cheese to gush about that A+ I just got history because that's what the How to Mom guidebook says, but then gives a speech about much dishonor about that A- in Math cause she wants her kid to be the best. At boarding school, no less, because you aren't here. I feel like a prized show dog, or an animal in a tank with a feed box, like I literally don't need your attention except once in a week, and even then it's just to throw a full pellets in as a routine and to critique my high step. And until puberty hit, I guess I just didn't care—or didn't notice—but over the last few years I have gotten so fed up with everything, and so lost, and so frustrated that there are times I literally feel absolutely insane, and my feelings are so strong and so far outside the parameters of what everyone—nannies included—expected them to be that they scare everyone.

"And I _blame you._ I didn't even know I blamed you until someone forced me to realize we all treat you like a _madonna_ and I was rationalizing _everything_ as my fault, in denial of how angry I was even when it was simmering up through the cracks and making me act biggest problem is that you aren't here, but every time you want to 'play mom' you act like you _were here_ and haven't missed anything and don't need a catch up or to listen to everyone else's reasoning! You aren't here, not to watch me grow, or interact with me, or impress me with stories of your life or be impressed by stories of mine, or _anything._

"And you know what? _You're running out of time._ " He clenched his fights tightly.

Mom shifted slightly, but didn't speak, and he still wasn't looking at her. _Couldn't._

"There are chapters and chapters of my life you are _never getting back_ , and there are problems you might never be able to if you moved back home tomorrow, I'm just four years shy of adulthood and my feelings aren't really malleable like they were when I was a toddler—when you _left me here._ Now I'm at the age where I almost don't even want you to be here, where _I_ don't want to be here either, where I don't want to be spending time with adults anymore and I want to be gone, out of the house, skateboarding with friends, siblings, cousins or peers my own age— but you know what? I don't have any. And I can't go outside, woops! And I'm angry about that, too, even though it's obviously no one's fault.

"Point is you've spent those years one way, and regardless of whether you thought it was for the best, regardless of what good you've done as Channel 4's leader, regardless of how badly we needed money, _this is the way it is now,_ and if you want to have any relationship with me whatsoever, before I'm old enough to technically walk out the front door and never come back, you need to stop feeling like I'm your baby, you need to stop _freezing me in time,_ you need to give up that ultimate authority over 'yes' and 'no' you had when I was _five,_ you need to _submit_ to the fact that _people other than you_ carried out the emotional duties of being my parents, and you _need to let me fight you._

"Because _Fucking Hell_ are you _controlling._ You plan my life out with Donatello while I'm not there, and he's so platonically in love with you he pretty much agrees to everything. I'm in exactly the school courses you signed me up for, I had zero input to that. I wanted to take Oceanography, or Home Economics, or _Music_ , or any number of other electives which might have been interested and taking away some _performance anxiety_ away, but you decided I needed more college prep. Dad makes all my clothing, I have zero self expression. Still you've criticized how I've dressed, which is absurd; apparently baseball caps are beneath me and heaven forbid I should ever try to justify innocently made fashion choices by suggesting I might be slightly self-conscious about _not having your hair_ and wanting to cover my head, you'd surely give me a lecture on how that makes no sense, and it's just a hat. But what am I supposed to do when everything is just a hat and I need something? You even frequently talk about finding buyers or zoos or sanctuaries for my snakes, which are the very first thing I get up for in the morning. You have _zero idea_ what's important to me—either that, or you _don't like it,_ and pretend you can change what I value by denying you heard anything.

"You set my bedtime and try to plan all my meals; fine. But you have thrown out my food and asked my uncles to cook new stuff for me, to the point where Mikey won't make hot breakfast while you're home because he knows I _loathe_ the taste of boiled eggs, and you think fried is going to kill me or something. You set rules about what movies I can watch and video games I can play and put parental controls on everything; fine. But you don't discuss any of it with me or let me make exceptions. Well, newsflash, you've basically put childproof locks on cupboards; I learned to disable that entire system _years_ ago. If you were hoping the birds and bees conversation was going to surprise me, you are sadly mistaken. I've—the horror!—played Grand Theft Auto (it didn't impress me), and have watched Deadpool, The Watchmen, and _Shakespeare in Love,_ which apparently was _way_ too mature for itty bitty children my age because of ten seconds of boobs, and is going to turn me into a mass murdering psychopath.

"I'm not allowed to confront you on anything, that I've already said, but what's worse is I don't even feel safe talking in front of you, so if the news is on I don't talk about my political views, and if a movie is on, I avoid laughing too loud, or explaining what my favorite part of the story is. It doesn't seem like you can let me talk about anything without correcting some perceived misconception I have about everything. I'm scared to even tell jokes in front of you cause you seem to think I'm in dire danger of going overboard in some direction and desperately need Aesops Fables or Devils Advocates or something! You're _never_ on my side for some reason!

"And it's not just a recent problem! This is just how I feel now, I feel like there are icebergs of _history_ to dig through! Yeah maybe I was young for some stuff, but I feel pretty damn mature for my age and I'm nearly positive the way you used to cyberstalk me was creepy as fuck, especially given Donatello kept an eye on me! A few years ago you spied on and disapproved of and _erased without my consent_ some of my music albums, along with comments I made on YouTube with curse words in them. Fine! I can't curse and I can't listen to music with curses, whatever! So once you stole my phone and erased Candy Crush because you said it was a waste of time that turned peoples' brains to jelly. So what!? Games often are! Uninstalling innocent shit on your kid's phone is weird!

"Even now, you let me have a credit card but then ask me about every single transaction even when the description is _right there,_ even thought I already clear everything with Donatello, like you think I'm some kind of three-time debt champion instead of the most frugal, cost-conscientious kid ever—I've balanced a check book for my own piggy bank since I was ten—so now-a-days I just use Michelangelo's card instead because often I'm the one having our groceries delivered to us at good times for Leo to do pickup, and I'm tired of being grilled, I'm tired of talking to you, I'm tired of how we never _talk_ it's just some gigantic unending lecture.

"And almost none of that—none of that—is quite so stressful as your slow, painful decision to begin disapproving of my ninjitsu lessons, because honestly mom that's my _sanctuary,_ that's the thing I'm good at that will give me the freedom to move around topside at nighttime, where I can get some freedom, where I make measurable progress and can compare myself against the people around me and feel _good,_ and I love it, and you're _never proud of me,_ and you never come in the dojo, and you never cheer me on or tell me good job or even just bring me water, or _anything_ , and the truth of the matter is I'm not some four-year-old you can protect, I'm going to be absolutely enormous, and _strong,_ and this is going to be how I _protect myself._

"But no, you criticize my ninjitsu. But you also criticize when I spend too much time exercising, studying, or playing games, which is really quite depressing to me not only because you help plan my schedule in the first place but because you seem to forget that _that's my entire life,_ and I can't get out and _bar hop_ or tip over cows or whatever it is you expect me to do, and the only thing that's ever come of your obsession of picking on me for being _stuck underground_ is that I got to go for runs out in the sewers—not Central Park, not around people or nature mind you—but in the sewers, which _all_ of my uncles and my father were allowed to do _many, many_ years before me, and which allowed me enough freedom from the constant parental oversight to let some of the stress out by screaming angrily out into the void, swimming, and eventually sneaking topside to be as ultra-careful and secretive as a shadow because I'm _paranoid_ of letting anyone down and seeing their disappointment in me.

"You don't want me to _be, do, or change_ in any way you didn't first design, like I'm the best marble statue you ever etched and somebody keeps trying to change a part while you're not looking, but the fact is that I'm organic, and I resent—completely, and with everything in me—both that everything I pick to do myself is wrong _and_ that you'd _dare_ impose your will on my when you aren't here, you _aren't here_ to understand the very person you're doing these things to, or what any of the repercussions are or how they affect me, you aren't here to watch my face, or whether I'm sullen or hurting or miserable, or whether my soul's been stolen out, and _I want you to know me!_

"I _want_ you to be home, I want you to build a relationship with me, I want you to like _me_ no matter who I am, I want to argue with you, I want to disagree with you, I want to be loud, and surly, and moody, so long as I don't seriously hurt anyone, I want you to stop being so controlling and so oblivious and so fake-sounding because I want to know you as you are now—not as my mom when I was six—and I want to know about your work and your business partners and hardship and life, and what you and dad eat and do with your free time, when you have any, and I'd like to visit you at least once, and not have anyone jump down my through if I get melancholy or even grumpy at how much a single bedroom penthouse makes me feel I'm not part of your life because I have a lot of things to work through and I'm allowed to have feelings while that's happening! I want you to actually have stories you want to tell me about yourself, not just the censored stuff but the tough stuff, I want you to get excited about describing things to me, I want to be privy to all the inside jokes and disasters, and _your life!_

"And I've been so angry, and in such denial I've been angry, for so long, that the only way I know how to get it out of me is to vent it at the loudest possible volume, and I know some of the things I said were said in a way that blew them out of proportion, because I remember your reasoning behind some of those things was sound in hindsight, and other things you did wrong were done by accident, but the way it stacked up over all the years, the way it grew, the way it feels now, feels so bad, feels like so much, eats at me every day and into every cell of how I feel, that Leo pointing at you and telling you I was _scared_ was the most terrible and vindicating moment, and— and-and my head is just primed, without my permission, to form the absolute worst impression of everything you do anymore because I am perpetually braced to be let down! And I know some of that _must_ be exaggerated, but saying so only helps make me feel _crazy...!_ "

Tears. They slipped down his face and tightened his throat, making it hard for him to get words out.

He had no idea if he was saying the right things. If he was successfully staying on topic, and hitting all the right targets and explaining how _big_ everything had been from his point of view. How it had felt like malice even if he knew it wasn't malice; how repeatedly telling himself it wasn't malicious had triggered the opposite result in his head, and how now a part of him couldn't see it as anything _but_ malicious in retaliation.

"I was so desperate and so frustrated with you, I tried to talk _to Dad,_ and _that's what we fought about, you,_ and that's why he _kicked my ass,_ and when you came in to yell at him, I wanted to protect _him_ from _you_ _,_ because I felt it was my fault, my fault for talking bad about you, for bringing it up when he was already angry, because I was afraid you'd _take_ him from me, and he's the only 'real' parent I have who wants to spend time with me...!

"I wanted your approval for so long, and I still want it, and I get thrills when you say things like that I take after you, because I admire you; but I feel _disillusioned_ with that admiration. It's like you're listening to a character creation screen for a video game, and either nodding vacantly for me to continue listing more attributes to add to your new character gen, or vetoing the items you don't like and issuing expertly crafted, bullet pointed arguments as to why they're terrible. I've just been a _kid,_ and you barely ever see me, and when I argue with you that _maybe_ my way's okay too, you _flatten me._

"And that's why I acted like I was plainly _high_ earlier, because I could tell you weren't listening to me list places I'd snuck into, you were just composing your thesis on how to discipline me, waiting for me to say the right phrase for you to pivot off of and criticize me. You _weren't listening._ I think of you as _perfect,_ and I don't know how to criticize you or stand up to you, and I'm resentful of that because it's made me feel like I don't deserve you; and at the time I've somehow simultaneously cultivated this slow, simmering, pervasive, tremendous anger towards you for being as human as anyone else, and for not showing any interest in letting me be me—whatever that means; and when I sensed you were about flatten me, but that everyone was there ready to help me finish saying my peace, I stopped forfeiting my chance to say everything, grabbed my baseball bat, and waited for you to pitch.

"A-and..."

His throat was choked. He couldn't keep going, which was scary, because if he let any conversational holes happen, his mother might start talking, and he might never get another chance, and he might lose his one and only opportunity to spill everything.

He rubbed at his face.

Silk.

Black silk.

"I want to go topside," he blurted madness, and even as it came out, he knew it was exactly right. Pressure, wind, _water_ swelled in him, buoying him above the sticky gelatin clutches of helplessness. "I want to leave the house." His voice ceased quavering. "Sometimes during the day, sometimes at night, depending on what's best for security and the activity. I want to be able to just get up and _go_. To say Wild and I are going to the skate park, we'll be back in two hours."

He heard his mother move slightly.

For the first time in the conversation, Sandro dared to look up at her, his head still hung low, his breath leveling out. He saw the tears in her eyes, and the thin line of her mouth as she held quiet the way she'd promised him, her hands tight upon the table edge.

Sandro swallowed, but he knew where he was going, suddenly. "My father and uncles hit their adult growth spurt at about twenty-one. Assuming I'm the same, I've only got so many years to go outside. To be normalish. I'm going to be _huge,_ and when I'm seven feet tall it's going to be much harder to hide in a crowd. I'll be like dad, never able to follow you anywhere, unable to sneak in to any buildings at your side without attracting notice. Right now, I'm _just_ the right size to pass for a young adult. And I know I'm 'only fourteen' and in your mind that's still just a child, but listen, _please_. I've got six or seven years to actually go out there and _live life._ To have everything normal people get to have, to have the experience of going into a museum, or walking in a park, or seeing a Broadway musical.

"I don't want to endanger myself. I don't want to give away that I'm a turtle. I definitely don't want to pretend I'm some kind of hero; you're right, having parents who can take care of my family means I can be slightly buffered from _death_ and _fighting,_ that I can actually enjoy my childhood much longer than my family ever could. But I want to _enjoy it._ And what's more, I don't want to do it holding my parents' hands anymore, I don't need them to make time in their busy schedules for me and maybe accidentally give away that there's a juvenile turtle to the Foot. I want to do it incognito, hanging with someone my own age.

"Which, incidentally, I have looked up on the net in psychology papers, is completely normal. I'm a teenager, it's normal for me to be making a transition from wanting to hang out with my older family members to wanting to hang out with my friends; except I have no friends, I just have _a friend,_ one person, and that's it. I told you the truth about the time I spent with her, most of it was doing cardio, gymnastics, and talking. About what? Homework, music, video games, movies, the meaning of life, various types of cheese, the stars, politics, decor, Japanese history, _anything._ Just because I wanted time away from helicopter attention doesn't mean I must have wanted to be getting in trouble. I'm _starved_ for any kind of freedom, for spontaneity, for _air._

"I want the space to figure out how to be a little independent. To _grow up._ And the person I want to go outside with is _my friend_. To take off with Wild, hang out, get in mild, non-violent trouble, grab pizza, dumpster dive an RC car, fix it up, go to a soccer game, accidentally put out a car windshield, run away cursing at and giggling to and reproaching each other, be _stupid_ together, come home covered in mud, cold and snickering and complaining he/she started it. I want to get grounded for real and have it mean something, because I was actually doing something _dumb_ and need to not go _outside into the free air_ for awhile as punishment.

"But to ask any of that from you, I need to be able to talk to you about how to 'be stupid' safely, to argue with you, to win or lose, to explain myself and be heard and ask for tips and advice and suggestions about how to live life for safely...

"And yeah, I am _more emotional_ than I want to be, too, but I am starting to suspect my _emotions_ are right and my _self control_ was wrong. So if you can't figure out how to let me out safely, I will probably end up sneaking behind your back again, not because I think I'm immortal and ignorant of the dangers, and not because I _want_ to disobey, but because I am _desperate_ _to see the world_ before I no longer can, and I am _desperate_ to feel alive, enjoy being a child, enjoying growing up, and 'no' isn't a good enough answer anymore. Not when I've seen it work a hundred times already. I'm too old. I understand what I'm _missing out on,_ and befriending that stupid loudmouth one room over instead of rushing home to my family was a 'mistake' I'd never take back in a million years,

"N' speaking of which, I know—or I'm pretty sure—she isn't the kind of kid you'd _ever_ have picked out as a 'playmate' for me. It's not in the mom handbook to go: 'That girl has shamelessly killed three people and tells dick jokes, I think she should be hanging around my son.' And she's insane and has no filters, but that's half of what I _like_ about her, all that energy, and all those flaws. And I- I can _handle_ her." Sandro straightened. "And I _like_ that about myself, that I just naturally know what to do with her, how to rein her in, how to use her best plans and roll my eyes at the stupid ones. She's the _opposite_ of me in tons of ways, and I like the counterbalance.

"But most importantly from your position, she's never _betrayed_ us. She did not let anything happen to me over a hundred trips topside. Under all that bluster of hers—and there's a lot of that, enough to fill a zoo, no question—is this intense, perceptive, genuine part which learns everything it can about people, often as a parlor trick, defensive measure, or _weapon._ There's this part of her that's already slippery, jaded, streetwise, _sharp_ , and she hides it under the jokes to make herself look harmless. She's not. The night we met, she killed a gunman who was on the verge of taking my head off. She's ridiculously _protective of me,_ walking everywhere in front of me like a wave breaker, and handling every single conversation _aggressively_.You and I just watched her put _herself_ between me and Raphael, but that wasn't some kind of _cute thing._ That's the authentic part of herself, just a little bit crazy, just a little bit ruthless. She's been leaking spurts of rage at him since Friday and masking it over with jokes, because she instinctively feels she has to keep me safe.

"Not that I'm going to admit it to her—her ego's already enormous—or Dad—he got weird enough about me and Mikey knowing pony names, like if I'm anything other than the manliest SOB reeking of testosterone, pine, bear grease, and cooked beef from every pore, it somehow reflects badly on his parenting skills—but that stupid, sweet, caustic little idiot _makes me feel safe_ when I'm with her, and I like that about her and I _let her do it._ I look after her; she looks after me. I tell her when something's morally wrong; she tells me when something's _unwise._ She jumps ne'er-do-wells with the enthusiasm of Mr. Jones, but she's still got this wide-eyed young part that looks up to Michelangelo, Donnie, and Leo and I _want her coming here,_ not just to hang out with her here, but because I think my family will be a good influence on her and I want her to be healthy.

"I like she needs help being healthy. I like that she doesn't have any idea what her own feelings are, and that she buries them down under jokes. I like how she only acts out when nobody's with her and anxiety hits and she likes to pretend she doesn't feel stress; how she needs the people around her to be stable so she can understand how she fits in relative to them, like she's a _comet_ that needs a _moon_ to orbit. I like that she's disrespectful because _I_ can make her listen, and I know she's just got trust issues but _I made the cut._ I like _her_ , all the parts of her, I understand her problems and they _fit with my strengths,_ and I don't even feel like I should have to argue so passionately on behalf of that because for God's sake, _I need somebody, so she should count no matter who she is!_

"But when I'm clammed down on and am repressing everything and am in denial and am screaming to be left alone by people I desperately want to love me and show me attention; when everything I feel is irrational but all the irrational feels are so real I can't outlogic anymore, she just... sees inside and pulls out the truth in one or two sentences that make everything calm and sane again. Because that same observation skill she has, for certain key people, is her most genuine means of showing she _cares_. She watches me, always, all the time, gauging when it's time to play stupid and when I _need help,_ and by the time I'm crashing, she's already amassed this huge pool of data to help me figure myself out. And I like how complex and _cerebral_ that is. I like that she's _smart,_ I like that she can take care of herself but still wants help, I like that she's _vulnerable,_ I like that she's _nasty_ and absurd and _weird_.

"And I _need that._ And if you tell me we can't be friends, I'm... I'm not going to round my shoulders and go to sulk and give up. You have nothing to take away from me, not games, not ninjitsu, not TV, _nothing, no punishment,_ which would be worse than telling me I can't see her. If you want to control me, then fine, _control me,_ but I will keep trying to reach her, because _that's what I value now._ Her friendship. I will _fight you_ for that, and I will fight long and hard because everything I have in comparison is gray to letting you win that, to losing her. There isn't anything I _have_ worth her friendship. Worth the way I feel like I a complete human being—or... turtle, or whatever—when I'm bantering with her.

"S'why I picked to wear a mask. Hers is Yang, and mine's Yin. Cause she's like my _little brother,_ the one I only finally got to have."

Sandro sat back. He looked at the phone his mom had given him.

 _Two hours._

Giddy, exhausted, weak, he added: "And Dad's obviously wondering why I have the _girl_ mask, and its' because Wild's _obviously a giant thermonuclear explosion,_ and I'm _obviously the moon,_ so deal with it, Dad, Luna's now the boy in this cosmology, _whatever_."

He tapped the phone, and slid it across the table, and then with a heavy sigh he dropped his elbows to the table and cradled and protected his head, and he started to cry because he had no idea what had just happened over those two hours. He cried so hard he didn't hear as his mother stood up, or tapped the phone again to make sure it recorded everything. He did feel it, though, as she draped an arm across the back of his neck and slowly hugged him. There were tears on her face, and she held him very tightly and didn't say a thing.

Sandro leaned into the comfort of her, daring to hope.


	72. Regroup!

One moment Wildcard was in her chair; the next, she'd popped up on the opposite side like a mole. "San-san!" she greeted the exhausted-looking boy who'd just emerged into the kitchen. Donatello twisted about to look. Then he left the dishes in the sink and dried off his hands, anxious about how this had all gone.

Sandro's eyes were rimmed slightly in pink and his shoulders were collapsed, and for an instant Wildcard stood hesitantly there before him with her hands slightly outstretched, almost like she was confused about how much affection she was allowed to show him. A split second later, she pointed back to the table and announced:

"That is your actual pizza! I didn't touch it, not even to take one bite out of every piece! I gave you one of my pieces! See?" She reached back and opened the box to demonstrate that it was so.

Sandro shuffled forward a step and looked quietly down at the pie, like this extra piece truly did require inspection before it could be believed in. That would have been humorous, Donnie thought, except for the part where neither child reached out to touch the other. Where had all their soft-edged clinginess gone? These were kids who'd fallen asleep while somehow still miraculously _holding hands._

April entered the kitchen just a few paces behind Sandro. Though Raphael stood to receive her and Donatello gave her a questioning look, she waved both of them down and went over to join the kids. Wildcard looked up to her as if awaiting a sentencing. April smiled.

"I've just heard a lot of stories about you, Anastasia."

"Oh _no,_ " Wildcard was sure this meant the worst. "Those firecrackers were already lit when I found them, honest!"

Sandro nudged her with his elbow. Wild crumpled like origami in a rainstorm. Ordinarily she would have glommed on to _Sandro_ ,but now she only hugged herself like some pitiful surrogate.

"I understand you've been coming here to spend most of each day with our family?" April requested confirmation.

"It... depends if 'most' is defined as a quantity of hours greater than twelve," Wildcard whispered mathematically, "or if we are talking about the majority of each day's waking hours...in which case the boolean value of your assertion would resolve as true... "

Donatello took a brief moment to mentally derail and contemplate that this child also knew the words 'alkaline' and 'kelvin,' and had apparently on first meeting him had very intentionally brought a sample from Iron Man's smart missiles.

"I see." April did, in fact, understand boolean assertions. "And apparently you've been hanging out since May, before that? Well, listen to this, both of you: there are clearly some things our family needs to talk about, and things I'd personally like to reflect on. But I've a compromise to propose in the meanwhile. For now, could I ask the two of you to limit your visits to just five hours a day?" Wild perked up; five was extremely generous when compared to zero. "That's... one for Donnie's Japanese lessons and other schoolwork, two for Ninjitsu, and two for play. Does that sound fair?"

Wildcard looked to Sandro, and then to April. "I can still come?" she murmured, slowly reflating. "I don't have to, like, put a paper bag over my head and pretend I can't see him to make it to Sensei's lessons?"

"That's correct. But when it's time to go..."

"...I go? Yes ma'am! Yes, of course. Of _course!_ " Wild looked to Sandro to make sure she was agreeing to the right thing, and then beamed at him and April both, bounced, and clapped her hands rapidly. "Yay!" Her eyes widened. "Wait, is this prohibition extended only to Sandro and the Lair, or am I also forbidden from seducing Michelangelo out with samples of my neighbor's calzones to get him to teach me skateboarding moves?"

On hearing his name, Mikey twisted about to wave at April. Remarkably, he was on topic. "Hey April, I walk her here and back every day," he explained. "I'll make sure she's on time both ways!"

"Thanks, Mike," April smiled at him and at both kids. "Alright then. I guess..." she smiled at Sandro in particular, and rubbed his shoulder. "Maybe right now everyone really does just need some pizza. Raph?"

Sandro tugged Wildcard out of the way by the elbow to assert that she neither needed to shout 'Amen,' nor actually seek any clarification on the issue of those skateboarding lessons, and April went to join Raphael.

Donatello looked discretely between mother and son, trying to work out what _his own_ role was now. Raphael was the one who leaned back and watched carefully, to catch as as April's expression fell from 'welcoming' to 'troubled' once the kids were behind her. _Raphael_ was the one who suspected she might be repressing tears, and slipped a hand reassuringly behind her neck and shoulders to guide her gently to take his own chair. And Raphael was the one who looked worriedly back in Sandro's direction, expression clearly forming an unspoken, 'Hey, you okay kid?'

Sandro's return expression was dull and meaningless. The two kids hovered beside one another for a little longer, making no physical contact except for the hand on Wild's arm, looking steeped in stress, with the absence of a hug hanging almost palpably in the air between them. What was that all about?

Donatello bit down on the inside of his cheek. If he himself walked over there and demonstrated reassurance and affection to his nephew at this delicate juncture, how would April and Raphael perceive it? As 'usurping' something? The last thing their family needed was a fresh argument or deluge of ill-feeling! Perhaps uncertainty was why April was holding strong to make sure Raphael didn't treat her like a victim, because she knew Sandro was both observant and sensitive. Maybe, too, that was what had the kids glancing uncertainly at one-another's feet: Neither child wanted to know how their parents would take the gender difference just yet. With so much still unresolved it felt like everyone was walking on eggshells with everyone else.

 _Mikey!_ Donatello nearly snapped his fingers aloud in epiphany. _Nobody will fault Mikey for hugging anyone, for any reason!_ Donatello picked up and whipped a wash cloth at his youngest brother, who jumped in surprise. Donatello jerked his chin at Sandro. _Help me!_ Mikey raised a brow, but then startled slightly in realization. _Yes, you silly sunburst, come on! Read my mind!_

Michelangelo did just that, pushing his chair back, getting up, and trotting over—not _just_ to hug Sandro, but both children simultaneously.

Excellent, excellent.

* * *

Sandro finished his pizza as quickly as possible and excused himself from the table. Wildcard followed.

The couch and video games were too close for any privacy, and Sandro's room didn't seem like a stellar place for the two of them to try holing up together right now, what with the risk of accidental implications. They headed for the hallway and the exercise room, and as soon as they were out of April's sight, Sandro turned about and grabbed hold of his sibling. She grabbed him back, arms bunched around the back of his neck and under the lip of his shell; dangling with her toes off the ground and one leg hooked slightly around his for balance.

Sandro closed his eyes, leaned back with her securely pressed to him, and cried. Silently, though; they weren't far enough away from the adults for him to expect to go unheard. But the tears brimmed and the tears fell, and he took deep breaths into the security of her hair. They didn't have to say a word, they just needed a damn hug. A good hug, a long hug; to feel each other's realness and solidity. Some kind of energy exchange transferred, whereby the 'too much' of one individual went to fill the 'too little' of the other, and everything mixed and merged and settled.

The pressure in his chest eased up, as quick as someone loosening a valve.

Sandro took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, and then gently set his counterpart back down. He wiped at his face with his forearm and then paused, looking alarmed to the figure looming at the mouth of the hallway.

Raphael was there.

Sandro's instinctive reaction was to shell up defensively in preparation for an attack, a lecture, a _shouting match_ about how flippantly he'd behaved towards his mother earlier in the evening. A bolt of tension lanced through his belly and he very nearly pushed Wildcard behind himself to keep her safe.

But Raphael didn't approach, lingering hesitantly there at the entry to the kitchen, and his indecision gave Sandro's feelings time to turn about and reconfigure.

His... his dad was just checking in on him, to see if he was okay. Like he'd apparently done before, only Sandro had never _seen_ it.

Wild noticed they'd been observed, and twisted slightly to glance behind herself. She saw who it was, smiled cheerfully, displayed none of the anxiety she'd shown around April (a set of priorities that only made sense to Wildcard), and then threw her arms around Sandro's waist and shell to squeeze to him. "Are your energy tanks back out of the danger zone?" she whispered conspiratorially. "The old people need us to sneak off to blast music or something so they can have serious conversations without us eavesdropping!"

Sandro blinked rapidly from Raphael down to her. "Yeah," he grunted, because that was a fine synopsis of the current moment. "Grab your practice gear, we can do throwing stars."

She snickered as she let go of him, and said, "Gonna kick your shell again, _Princess!"_

"Hey," he growled, because Raphael was watching.

"Kitten?"

"Wild."

"Muffin?"

" _Wild._ "

"Sugarplum, Toots, Dollface, _Tinkerbell?_ Princess Peach-hahahaHA!" she squealed as Sandro finally broke rank and bolted after her. "That's it, _Tinkerbell!"_

"Get back here SO I CAN _POUND YOU!_ " he roared into full volume, indifferent to scraping chairs and started silence far behind him, as the two bolted down the hallway and nearly crashed into a brawl at the bathroom corridor.

"You'll never take me alive!" Wildcard feinted and rolled past his hip, skidding to her feet in the hall with her backpack on one shoulder. She took one look at Raphael's confused expression—he'd actually come closer as if to help, and several other adults had peeked in, looking concerned. "Oh hi!"

Sandro took her out like a bulldozer and the two of them went rolling, crashed into a wall, and pushed free. And he managed to get on top of her, raised an arm, and punched straight for the face.

He was lucky Wildcard was getting better in a grapple, because she saved him from having to drag her into the clinic and explain to his parents why he'd just given 'a girl' another black eye. She tilted her head lightning fast out of the way and parried using her forearm and a brace with her opposite hand, getting him to punch the wall instead. _Shit_ did that hurt! Ha!

He withdrew his hand from the contact, and Wildcard threw a solid punch back at him, likely high on adrenaline and growing skillful enough to hit him solid on the cheek instead of the beak ridges so as to save her knuckles. Connection! She knocked his gaze to the side and staggered him long enough to push him back with a kick at the plastron, and then she'd sprung up and was bolting for the dojo where they'd surely bother her meditating Sensei. Sandro scrambled after her, barely logging that Raphael's reaction to watching this had been:

'Ooh. Huh. Nice right hook.'

That would have to wait for parsing at another time. "YA HEAD IS GOIN IN THE TOILET WHEN AH GET MAH HANDS ON YA!"

"I'll escape through the drains, I'm small enough! Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyahhhh, Sandro's a Princessss! Alley-oop!" She vaulted clear over Leo's shell, and Sandro nearly crashed right into him.

"Stop jumpin around LIKE AN EFFIN' FAIRY and FIGHT ME!" Sandro hit the weapons wall right after her, grabbing hold of the tantos there. He knew a throwing star was already airborn before he even managed to turn around, and he swatted it out of the air with a familiarity for her that honestly felt unspeakably refreshing after so much _talking_. "FINALLY! Ah am gonna MASH YA TA PASTE again DA PLUMBING, ya DAFT DELUSIONAL CLOWN!" Swat, swat, he advanced on her star by star.

"Nuh-ah, I'm gonna win!" his quarry taunted. "And you'll be driving the pink Mario Cart by dawn, _pretty boy!"_

He lunged for her, she rolled to the side; roar of frustration, exchange of banter; stars, swat, repeat! "YOU ARE DEAD!"

Leo, it should be noted, meditated successfully through all of this.

And Wildcard was lucky she was distracted with Sandro trying to murder her, or by God she'd have put a throwing star his way to test her sensei, and that'd have landed her in Hashi for weeks.


	73. Naps

"Well, would you look at that," Donatello remarked in a tone of voice that suggested this was not at all the first time he'd witnessed this phenomenon. "He's inherited his father's _bellow._ " Michelangelo snickered.

April looked back to them, and the realization hit her: "That'snormal?"

"That's normal," Donatello asserted firmly, and pretended to rub pain from one ear. "Surprised us about as much as it did you."

By the almost _shy_ way Raphael had leaned both hands against the hall at the dojo entrance and was peeking unobtrusively in to watch, _everything_ about this revelation had 'surprised,' worried, and intrigued him. He even flinched slightly now and then, clearly enraptured in the kids' play.

"Huh. No kidding... " April folded a hand thoughtfully over her mouth. "Should we be concerned, has he actually hit her?"

"Oh-ho, yeah!" Mikey snickered, sounding incredibly unconcerned. "Gave her an awesome shiner! Was probably half an accident, though."

"I have First Aid supplies at ready," Donatello assured her in a dry tone. "And brooms, seeing as they don't always confine their roughhousing to the dojo."

April blinked and then cocked a brow suspiciously at both of them. "Do you.. think this is _cute_ or something like that?"

"Na," Raphael had returned to them, and he rubbed uncertainly at the back of his neck. "We find it... kinda _normal._ "

"'Familiar,'" Donatello suggested.

"It's _so_ cuuuuuute!"Mikey betrayed them all with tremendous enthusiasm. "I was gonna be so disappointed if you didn't get to see it for yourselves!" He raised both brows at Raphael and bit his lip. Raph didn't immediately respond, so Mikey elbowed him. "C'mon!" he fished. "Who'd they look like?"

"Dunno what ya talkin' about."

Of course, Raphael knew exactly what Michelangelo was talking about. He just wasn't exactly sure how to feel about his son promising to pound a girl into paste in an eerily familiar accent, at an eerily familiar volume. Whether Sandro was _imitating_ something he'd seen his father do, or whether his behavior had been cobbled together as naturally as it had a generation previously, the comparison between the two of them was clear. Sandro... _did_ seem to have a 'temper.' And with the events of last week still looming over him, it was understandable Raph didn't know what his stance on the whole matter ought to be. He needed time to think about it.

April gave her husband a forgiving look, because she was out in the doghouse _with_ him right now. "I'm just a little worried for her, he's very strong for a boy his age."

"Leo's still in there with them," Raph mentioned with a nudge at her arm. "He'll pull em apart if they get too rough. Bit of a killjoy like that. Right?" He glanced to Donatello then, apparently asking for a read on the matter of anger issues, and not at all questioning Leo's gift for prematurely terminating unsafe fun.

"Right." Well, that was another development: Donnie and Raph were trading words like some tacit, mutual forgiveness was carefully being felt out, and were no longer trying to bite each others' throats out like brawling dinosaurs.

"'Sides, she started it," Raph asserted, like that should explain everything.

April retracted that 'forgiving look,' and raised a slow brow up at her husband. "'She started it?' Are you _twelve_?"

"Wha-at?" Red asked with a bemused little laugh and a roll of his shoulders. "She knew what she was getting inta, Ape. It's fine, she's fine. She ain't scared of him."

"Hmm." April eyeballed him but let this slide.

She herself had never 'roughhoused' with the boys. Splinter had trained her in Ninjitsu for self defense, and she had occasionally used that training to swipe something from one of the brothers, or to pull off a short little prank, but she certainly hadn't been soliciting full-force punches to the face!

Casey had, though. He'd been completely unafraid of diving into the ring with Raphael in particular, taking Red down with a tackle and leaving the two of them to roll and grapple about in the dirt as each tried to get the other in a sleeper hold. Of course... Casey had also been taller, fitter, and more experienced in a real fight than Raphael on first meeting. Anastasia, by contrast, looked to be an inch or two shy of five feet tall.

"Kinda wanna know more about dis girl," Raphael prompted. "Where's she from, who's her dad?"

Donatello snorted. "Some bartender who encourages her eccentricities and as a result has no control over her whatsoever. She's technically 'home schooled' but I'm not sure what exactly that amounts to. By all appearances, Wildcard—Anastasia—doesn't need much more than to have the materials lobbed at her and she can do well enough on online tests. Sandro's mentioned she struggles with reading and written composition, and that she excels in mathematics and science."

"Of course." April couldn't help the smirk which took her. "Because naturally the roughhousing child referring to our son as a 'Princess' must excel at anything girls are purported to be disinterested in."

 _"Naturally,"_ Donatello agreed, with a light roll of his eyes that suggested April didn't know how truly she'd phrased things.

They heard a loud bang of a shell hitting the ground, and an equally loud cuss. A monotone response from Leonardo suggested he was doing due diligence in rebuking Sandro on their behalves.

Raphael cleared his throat and did them the decency of appearing a little bashful.

"They probably needed the stress relief," Donatello reflected, with a dismissive wave towards all the sound of dojo smack-talk. "I could blame teenage fighting hormones, except Michelangelo and I trounced Leo in the dojo a few weeks back and, _boy,_ was that cathartic pleasure at its finest. So maybe we're just all a little rowdy."

"How'd the hell'd ya manage that?" Raphael grinned, surprised. "Leo gets _better_ da more people he's fighin' at once, ya sure ya ain't bullshittin' me?"

"Creaaammmed him, bro!" Mikey hooted, and raised a hand for a hi-five Donnie absolutely gave him.

"We may have cheated slightly," Donatello admitted. "He lacked the foresight to prohibit tickle fights."

"We put him in Hashi for an hour!" Mikey cackled, to Raphael's cursing laughter. "The kids were _there_ and watched the whole thing! _He was so embarrassed!_ "

That nearly had Raphael roaring. He and Mikey bumped shoulders and clapped shells, and many congratulations were given.

April thought about that term Donnie was using, 'the kids.'

It had a nice sound to it.

"Ape? Yo! Hon?"

April blinked aware to the realization Raphael had craned over her and was waving a hand in front of her face.

"Ya okay?" he asked.

"I've..." She cleared her throat and gave a weak shrug. "I've a lot to think about."

Her husband shifted and glanced back towards the privacy of their bedroom door. "Ya wanna talk 'bout what Sandro had ta say ta ya?"

"I think maybe I want to sleep on it all first," she admitted with a strained smile. "It was a lot. I feel like if I dive in too soon, I'm going to miss the importance of the bigger picture." And that would be doing her son a tremendous disservice.

"Yeah. Well, Ahm thinkin' ya might forget ya went a solid work day, and then came home to all of this," Raphael reminded. "Ya want ta turn in early? Clear head'll help a lot."

"Oh. But..." April looked hesitantly to Donnie, and then towards the dojo where the kids were still busy. "I-I still have questions, and shouldn't I be here to... _something_?" It seemed very inconsiderate to go to sleep without saying farewell to a guest, particularly one who meant so much to her son, and whose exact character and impact were just beginning to be understood.

"Well, with your permission," Donatello suggested gently, "we could let Anastasia stay the rest of the day—longer than your prescribed five hours—so that she can tucker Sandro out and he doesn't start ruminating on his conversation with you before you've had time to resolve things. You _and_ he should both be rejuvenated by morning. As for Anastasia herself, Leo will apparently have her here two hours before sunset, regardless, so if you want to talk to her or ask her about herself, that'll work, too."

That did seem an acceptable compromise. April looked back to Raphael.

Raphael nudged her gently, to suggest she should take the rest. "Ah'll stay up for a bit ta cover for ya," he said. "And do some data acquisition for you while Ahm at it. Sound good?"

Dammit. It did. Maybe they were right, maybe she was doing everyone a disservice by trying to stay up when she more than a little emotionally drained.

Even so, even after Raphael half-bullied, half-seduced her into sneaking off and climbing into bed, she couldn't exactly sleep just yet. Guilt, dread, and concern swirled in her belly, and after staring up at the ceiling for about fifteen minutes, she reached out for her phone and flicked to her recording app, swiped, and hit play.

The slow, hesitant, wooden, expertly formed first words of her son's speech issued, tinny, out to her. It hadn't been playing for more than sixty seconds, and tears were already streaming down her face. She wrapped an arm tightly around her pillow, and set the phone beside her head, and closed her eyes tightly to listen and to sob.

* * *

A morning of stressful conversations had finally taken its toll.

Sandro was dead on his feet. He could barely keep his eyes open, and he dragged fingers along the wall beside him to keep himself oriented as he trudged down the hallway. Wildcard was flopped over his shoulder, legs dangling in front of him, arms draped loosely across his shell. He didn't mind the weight, it anchored him to the moment.

He paused at the needle room, toed open the mini fridge with a foot, and pulled out some soft gel ice packs, and snatched some gauze off the shelf, and then he continued on into the living room.

Raphael and Donatello were talking in the kitchen, and maybe the scrape of a chair indicated that one of them had turned around to look at him. He waved dismissively to indicate nobody needed to worry about him, and headed for the living room couch where the sanctuary of an afternoon nap awaited him. Mikey was sitting on the ground and playing a video game. Sandro didn't even bother asking him to mute it.

Sandro just trudged up to that couch, grabbed Wildcard around the hips to pull her off his shell and signal she needed to perk up for a second, and then spun about and flopped onto the couch. Oof. Yup, that was comfy.

He blinked blearily long enough to get one of those icepacks tied to Wild's arm where he'd nailed her with a tanto. He double knotted it securely in place. She looked groggily about and then propped herself up long enough to get one of those icepacks down onto his hip, and another onto his knee. Mnph. Yup. Hadn't healed all the way just yet. Kay. He checked her head and arms for other bruises, and then yawned.

She flopped back down on him with arms loosely around his neck and on his plastron, and he threw the other arm over her, and then it was just _lights out._ He couldn't have stayed awake if he'd tried.

* * *

At first, Raphael was just bemused. Then, when no conversation or banter ensued, he cocked his head to the side. Mikey muted the TV. Realization hit. Raphael got up and walked up to have a look at that couch. Donatello followed after him.

Sprawled across the couch in a tangle of limbs, girl and boy were both conked out unconscious. On top of each other. With ice packs, apparently.

Raphael gestured with both hands, and gaped incredulously at Donatello. Both younger brothers winced a little guiltily. Like they'd seen something like this before!

He looked back to both kids. Black mask was tucked to white, so neat that the stripes almost lined up.

Raphael dropped his hands.

Alright, that was... that was just... That didn't look like romance, didn't even look like _bromance,_ looked like _kids._ Exhausted kids flopped someplace safe, being unintentionally cute. Red and Orange, even.

"They're very physically social with each other," Donatello said quietly, almost guiltily. "They roughhouse, they eat off each other's plates, they break out fighting in the middle of a room, throw and shove each other, sit, lean, and lay on each other while studying. But they are also physically _affectionate._ They drag each other places by the hand, patch each other up after spars in the dojo, touch each other's faces and hands, and they definitely hug. If confronted about it, Sandro hardlines the explanation that she feels like his _sibling_. It was one of the reasons we solicited her help getting him to speak with both of you; she was very good at keeping him from clamming up. But I think today, they were leery of—"

"Pardon," Leonardo strolled up to them, carrying futon bedding and wearing a mildly annoyed expression. "I will move her."

"Na-! Na." Raphael lowered his voice and tossed a hand towards the scene. "S'just... s'just the couch, right?"

Mikey dared to help him. "People sleep on it all the time," he agreed with a tentative smile.

Leonardo gave them all a long, impassive stare that kinda made Raphael uncomfortable, and then he shrugged and turned away.

Yeah. Well. Fuck appearances or whatever it was they all looked so guilty about. April couldn't kill him if she didn't know, and Raphael wasn't no idiot: Three lifelong family bachelors for brothers was proof enough that a few years from now their son's _only_ candidate for a romantic partner was most probably already sleeping on top of him. Well ya know what? _Raphael_ wasn't going to fuck those odds up by shaking him awake and angrily telling him 'brothers' and 'sisters' couldn't snuggle past the age of ten. Somebody had to watch out for the little guy when everybody else's heads were jammed up their ass.


	74. Morning Whirlwind

Leonardo had an unusual amount of company that Saturday.

Typically, he went unchallenged as the earliest riser in the house, waking up far in advance of sunset for meditation, practice kata, and rote gear maintenance. Yet, today, no sooner had he sat down with sharpening stone and peening steel to address his katana than Sandro woke, bright-eyed and energetic, and immediately hurried past to start the coffee and to put a kettle of hot water on the stove for his, regrettably, kitchen-handicapped uncle.

Next to join them were Raphael and April, who must have been trapped half on a diurnal schedule, and who had clearly been up for several hours and talking in the privacy of their room. They came out to forage for cold cereal and milk, but Leo told them they need not bother. Donatello's interest in supplying piping hot early breakfasts had been revitalized of late, and, sure enough, he came out with a yawn to wave them out of the kitchen, that he might prepare toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon. Raphael helped by getting out a carton of orange juice and several different kinds of jelly from the refrigerator. April helped by setting out plates and silverware.

A initial wave of toast slices popped up, fresh and browned and ready for service. Leonardo figured he'd be getting no real peace, so he might as well sheathe his katana and eat first.

Donatello shot him a sleepy glance and smirked like he found this droll. "Feeling crowded?" he whispered.

"At least Michelangelo remains reliably comatose at this hour." Leo winked as he poured his tea and transferred the toast to a serving plate for everyone on the table. He replaced fresh bread upon the toaster, but was mindful not to actually try to depress the toasting button. Sandro ducked under his arm to help with that. Leo headed back to the table.

Donnie chewed over something he clearly found amusing and then elbowed Leo's shell. "Joke's on you: Mikey headed out _two hours ago._ "

Leo looked sharply back at him, flabbergasted, as April and Raphael took their first slices of toast. "Michelangelo woke _earlier than I?_ Is today opposite day? Have I walked through a dimensional portal on accident?"

"He went boarding in the sewers," Donnie replied with a snicker. "To be entirely fair, I believe 'calzones' were mentioned, and Mikey simply needed to investigate the matter."

Leonardo sank into his chair and sat there for a moment, thinking. "Well at least _that_ part makes sense," he absolved. "Calzones are delicious." He reached out for his marmalade to see what the damage was this time. Remarkably, the inside was clear of butter. Apparently a moratorium on the defilement of jams had been called into effect.

As it turned out, Leonardo spoke too soon, for only a few seconds passed in silence as the Hamato family listened to the sounds of frying bacon and cooking eggs and enjoyed their toast.

Then, "What is-? The _FUCK!?"_ Raphael suddenly exploded, standing up, eyes wide, back arched, beak slightly ajar, clearly furious. April leaned away from him in surprise, and Sandro jumped slightly. "Fuck. FUCK!" he repeated, and then scrambled past everyone for the refrigerator, and grabbed out the milk. He pried the cap off without twisting, threw back his head, and chugged straight from the gallon.

"That is disgusting," Leo commented. "Between you and Michelangelo, it seems our milk is routinely despoiled."

"That _is_ disgusting," April agreed worriedly. "Hon? Uh, did something happen?"

"Hot sauce," Leo surmised. He'd seen it before; this had happened to each and every one of them once, under one set of circumstances or another. "It is the only reason to head specifically for milk."

Donatello had apparently realized the same thing, because he sagged back against the counter top beside the stove with a loud guffaw, and then he bent double and slapped his knee, cackling like this was hysterical. Raphael whirled on him like a bull, lowering that milk with rivulets splattering to the ground.

Laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes, Donnie lifted up both hands in innocence and rapidly shook his head. "I-I didn't-HA!-do it!" he wheezed pleadingly. "H-here, t-take this b-bacon as tribute!" he grabbed the sizzling skillet and extended it like a peace offering. "Haha-HA!"

Red Turtle looked like he had half a mind to pound Donatello just for so clearly enjoying this, but then the front door opened.

"Hey dudes and dudettes!" called their missing sibling. "Leo, your package came! Whoa, is _everybody_ up?" He had his skateboard in hand, protective gear on, and a similarly outfitted child in tow.

"Hey Sandro! Hey Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil!" she bolted into the room, carrying a skateboard which she threw onto her customary chair as she passed as if it wasn't absolutely filthy and covered in sewer grime.

"MIIIIIIKE...!" Raphael snarled, throwing the gallon to its butt on the table where Leo steadied it with the back of his hand to keep it from teetering to the ground. "I'M GONNA-!"

"Eek! Whoa, whoa; time out, time out, I don't actually know what I did!" Mikey wailed, hugging his own skateboard and Leo's newly delivered Amazon Prime box to his chest and leaning back.

"Ha!" announced a little girl with a flash of green eyes behind a white bandit mask as she whirled around to point back his way. "And again: Ha! I used ancient Chinese secret recipe hot sauce, you bastard, and I hope you are still shoveling down TUMS and feeling the burn tomorrow!"

Raphael stopped short. He twisted and blinked back at her incredulously. "What?"

She sank back on her heels as if to reflect on what she'd just said. "I also hid all of your left socks."

Donatello slapped a hand over his face and started howling with laughter. Sandro scrambled to his feet. April looked between each and every person present with her hands lifted in subpoena for information, baffled—as any sensible person surely would be—why anyone would cuss atthe parents of their best friend on second meeting.

Mikey gaped between Wildcard, Donnie, and Raphael. "Oh she _pranked_ you!" Orange realized with wonderment. Then he shut his mouth and gave a big careless shrug. "Well as her new mother, naturally I vow to take responsibility for all of her pranks!" Orange announced, and then whipped his skateboard at Raphael, who was blindsided and hit clear upside the head.

"MIKE!" Raphael bellowed, whirling on him.

"Gotta catch me bro!" Mikey squealed and booked it back out the door. Raphael followed hot on his tail.

Leonardo, Sandro, and April all slowly looked from the door, to a manically laughing Donatello, down to the girl who was tapping thoughtfully at her chin like she was sure something about this had not played out to her grand master design. "In my defense," she said at last, "this all made a lot more sense when on Monday. I had a lot of pent up aggression to work through."

Sandro considered that and then reached over and pat her head. "Well, somebody had to get him back for hitting me without making things even more serious," he decided. "And, look, clearly you've made Donnie very happy."

"Hee," the girl grinned fondly Donatello's way, "I did, didn't I? He's so _cute_ when he laughs!"

"No flirting with my uncles," Sandro cuffed her. "C'mon, let's go cook some new eggs, these ones are getting burnt and I don't think our chef's recovering any time soon."

"I'll get the mozzarella! That goes in eggs, right? Right? Wait! Oh no! San, did I curse earlier?"

"Ayup," said Sandro as he moved the toasted scrambled eggs off a burner and stooped to retrieve a new skillet. "Right to his face, too, and in front of my mom to top it off."

"Oh, _shell_ ," she grumbled as she opened the refrigerator and rummaged for a bag of shredded cheese. "Dad's had me working so hard on that, I was ahead of you by _light years,_ and totally proud, our score was like seventy-five to six, and then I go and curse at one of your parents. What's _wrong_ with me?"

"Do you want the short list or the long one?" Sandro was apparently all sass that morning. "Bring some milk, would you? Not the stuff dad just _profaned_ with backwash,there's a gallon of whole cream still in the fridge right? Yeah. Good, put it—Wild. Wild, eggs are an ingredient of eggs. You cannot make scrambled eggs with just cheese and milk. Back to the refrigerator, try again. Butter, too, please, if you've also forgotten how cooking on a stove actually works."

April slowly looked to Leonardo, and folded her hands on table, waiting expectantly.

"I do not know where to begin," Leo apologized over his tea as he stood up to go over and close the front door. He found that the package he'd ordered had been left behind in all the kerfuffle, and picked it up. "Perhaps it is better we just hold our peace and observe the animals in their natural habitat, seeing as they seem not to have noticed us just yet." Of course, no sooner had he sat back in his seat and reclaimed his tea, than the instigator of all this chaos pounced upon his elbow, leaning over his arm and grinning at the box.

"What'd you buy!?" she demanded. "I didn't look, so if it's sneaky adult literature I'm not supposed to know about, you're in luck! Mostly because Sunshine held it over my head and didn't let me have it. Honest!"

Somewhere in the back of the kitchen, a new wave of hysteric giggles hit Donatello, who clearly had just lost record levels of stress this morning.

"Hmm. I fear you shall be terribly bored with the reality, if that was the lean of your speculations," Leonardo replied, pushing it over to her. "Here. It is unseemly that you should be wandering around the house barefoot and wearing pilfered night clothes two sizes too large, all for want of money."

Kinpōge, recoiled from the box, and it seemed nothing else could have hamstrung her interest so quickly as this. She leaned back and poked at it like she thought the box might explode, or, worse, spring to life and bedeck her in some form of formal school uniform. "What _is_ it?" she asked, like nothing could be so horrifying as whatever Leonardo might have seen fit to buy her. "You think I'm going to let you _dress_ me?"

Leonardo waved a hand dismissively. "I neglected to procure a gift for your birthday. Regardless, should anything therein offend your stylistic sensibilities, think nothing of it, I shall donate it to a homeless shelter." He took a sip of his tea.

Kinpōge looked up to his face in bafflement. Then she looked back down to the box. After a moment, she hesitantly, with repeated glances back up at him, took the box and brought it over to her chair so she could pull out her switch blade and neatly cut the packaging tape. She folded one cardboard piece back after the other, and peeked inside like she thought she might have to slap them all back in place to keep a monster from leaping out. When no such drama happened, she opened the box fully, and pulled out several bundled pairs of tall, white, tabi socks. She looked between them, and them dropped them and pulled out a pair of white exercise pants. She found matching white, long-sleeved shirts, and held one up against herself.

"Oh," she said very quietly. "I guess this is okay."

"Mn." He took another sip of his tea. "If you are not going to launder them yourself, leave them here to use as spares and I will ensure they are kept clean for you. I should rather suffer a lazy student than a rebelliously under-dressed one."

Sandro came up between them, distributing hefty portions of scrambled eggs to Leonardo and April's plates. He glanced over at Kinpōge as if she disinterested him, but then paused and squinted. Slowly, a grin formed at the boy's mouth, and he ribbed her. "You're _embarrassed,_ " he realized. "He _got_ ya, didn't he? Didn't he? Eh? You're gonna wear em, and you're gonna _wash_ em."

Kinpōge had started going red out to her ears, and she scowled at Sandro and shoved him. "Point for Sensei," she growled, grabbed her box and hugged it to herself like it was a much more spectacular present than socks, and stuck her tongue out; then she hurried off for the hallway, hopefully to go properly dress herself for ninjitsu practice.

Sandro laughed after her fleeing steps, and then turned a genuine grin to Leonardo. "Nice," the boy approved, "if there's one thing she needs to get over it's being a _slob_. And she is, trust me, I've seen her bedroom while we were cleaning out the sugar glider's cage, and she's worse than uncle Mike. Only difference is she doesn't try to eat in there. Laundry on the bed, knives all over the floor... You want any coffee, mom? I think the machine just finished."

"Yes," April O'Neil admitted dazedly, because apparently Michelangelo was a mother, there was hot sauce in the grape jelly, Leo was offering to do his student's laundry, and her son had visited a girl's bedroom. "Yes, I think I would."

"Me too," Donnie squeaked from somewhere on the floor.


	75. Aron Alpha

Donatello planted one hand on his hips that he might better survey the two turtles from over his second cup of black coffee.

Both of them, standing in the doorway, were covered from head to toe in slime, sewage, and bits of half fermented fruit. Raphael tried to look pissed for one long moment, but then he and Michelangelo caught each other's glance, started snickering, and then busted out laughing as they leaned into one another and butted elbows, dripping gunk all over the floor.

From somewhere behind him, Wild whispered a distinctly audible, "Friendship goals," to Sandro.

"Oh, I will _totally_ push _you_ in a vat of sewage one day," Sandro promised. "You just have to wait till I'm not grounded anymore."

"That could work," Leonardo agreed sagely. "She cannot swim; you would have to dive in to rescue her."

"Ahhh, that's right!" Sandro recalled, fondly swiping open his phone to gaze at a picture. "The arm floaties," he cooed to himself. "The scandalized expression...!"

"War has been declared!" Wildcard either tried to nick the phone, or, perhaps, stab it to death, because a tussle broke out.

"Bathroom, now," Donatello scolded and nagged after Red and Orange's heels as they darted laughing down the hallway. "And you're mopping every molecule of drippage _off my floor!_ "

* * *

"Aren't we waiting for Sandro?" Wildcard asked with a glance behind herself as she tailed Leonardo into the dojo.

"Sandro's master in ninjitsu is Raphael, who is inclined to start later in the morning; I merely fill in as an assistant tutor during the weekdays," Leonardo replied.

"Oh." That part hadn't been clear to her before. It seemed strange that the best ninja in the household should only be 'filling in' when he was the only teacher present more than half the time. Maybe this kind of mental distinction was just how Leonardo helped keep the family peace. "So if I want to coyly bring up his lagging acrobatics skills at an embarrassing time in front of his mentor...?"

"Hmm. I shall make a note of this: The child who fails to keep her toes pointed in the right direction wishes to critique another's agility; I should plan out a discussion on the concept of glass houses." He tilted his head and seemed to reflect. "It is fortunate I have selected to practice ahead of Raphael that he cannot lob return fire at me for her shoddy footwork." She giggled. Leo eyed her knowingly. "Let us not waste your stellar performance in winning Raphael-san over as your ally yesterday, not when he is usually so given to suspicion and paranoia towards outsiders. His words are going to hold a lot of weight with Sandro's mother, regardless of who is currently angry at who, and it seems Michelangelo has done an excellent job of defusing any tension surrounding the somewhat awkwardly timed punishing power of the hot sauce."

"That was really good hot sauce," Wildcard had to agree. "But, wait, what if I have a reallllllllyyy good one-liner at ready? It's dangerous to hold those in, they're like farts that way."

"Not today, Kinpōgekun." Knuckles rapped upon her head, barely hard enough to be considered a rebuke. "This is the first time Raphael and Sandro will return to practice in the dojo since the incident. We should give them some open air that they might mend a few wounds."

* * *

"Sandro?"

Mother touched at his shoulder and Sandro looked back to her quickly with a tinge of alarm. Wildcard had unabashedly monopolized the pulse of their breakfast that morning, so much so that April had apparently just sat back to appreciate the madness for a bit. But now Wildcard was gone to the dojo, and though Sandro obviously wanted to watch Leo work with her, he'd stayed behind partially to help Donatello cook for Mikey and his father, and partially because he knew he _did_ have to face his mother and stick around to make sure she didn't form all the wrong impressions in his absence.

Mom leaned back and was quiet a moment. Then, with something almost like a smile about her eyes, she said, "You have the _strangest_ taste in friends."

Sandro blinked and smirked a little. "I used to pray to grandfather for a friend," he admitted with a little embarrassment. "I must have gone overboard listing desired attributes or something, she's got enough personality for five people."

"Well," April added dryly, "Master Splinter _would_ remember your mother hanging out with four green boys and a nutcase who liked pelting armed burglars with hockey pucks."

Sandro stared at her, smiled fading. _Is this... acceptance...?_

"Sandro..." Her smile faded, and she reached out and took his hands into hers. "Your father and I spoke a bit, and we _agree_ that yesterday you made a lot— _a lot_ —of very valid points which we need to look at very thoroughly. About our living circumstances, about our parenting methodologies, about Anastasia... maybe even about the potential for more trips topside."

Hamato Sandro's throat sealed up. He didn't dare trust himself to speak.

"But I also want you to understand that a lot of the issues you brought up were _systemic_ problems. Problems with our basic underlying assumptions about how to be good parents; and problems with how you've interpreted our behavior. It's going to take time for us to even sort through left and right on some of it, much less actually figure our exactly what to do. A lot of these things, they aren't going to change instantly or be fixed overnight."

"I-I know..." he mumbled.

She smiled fondly, like she admired him, but still seemed concerned. "Maybe so, but I'm worried that you've felt neglected for so long, you'll still _feel_ like our slow steps or outright mistakes are proof we don't care. Raphael and I are going to make mistakes. And on top of it we have our own emotions... Like, how when you were ordering pizza in the middle of a family discussion yesterday, I felt overwhelmed, unappreciated, and _angry_ _._ Raphael told me about that whole 'mistake' conversation, and I feel like some of the things you've taken as proof he hates you or that I don't listen, they're not what we meant _at all._ But I—both of us—we _love_ you, Sandro. And if you only _know_ that and don't _feel_ it, then it's no one's fault but ours. Honey..."

She lifted her hands to his face, and pulled his head gently down. Mom almost never did this, never touched her forehead to his, not the way Wild did. Mom usually kissed or hugged him. Forehead bumps were like a 'turtle thing' or something, it wasn't exactly American, though there was something fraternal about it; it wasn't Japanese and the only human ethnic group who seemed to do it was Polynesian; nobody knew why the four brothers (and Sandro) had all picked it up like it was natural to them. Maybe it just was; _natural._ But his mom did it now, pulling his head to hers, and Sandro felt the affection through the contact so genuinely, as she cupped his face, that he staggered slightly.

"We'll fix this," she whispered to him. "Me and your dad, with your help, with your blessing, we'll fix this.

Sandro didn't say anything. Couldn't say anything. When his mom moved to pull back, he reached out frantically and squeezed her to himself, and pressed his face into that pretty red hair he'd always felt like he wasn't allowed to touch. "I do love you," he mumbled, voice cracking and garbled. "I love you, mom."

It was okay. The pivotal battle had been won. They might still end up fighting in the future, but nobody was going to end up _lost_ or _left behind_ or _ostracized_ or _smothered,_ and the end result was going to be okay.

Mom rubbed over and scratched his shell and the back of his neck, and hugged him tight.

* * *

When Wild caught a glimpse of Sandro's face as he came into the dojo, she thought it looked like he might have been crying again. He smiled at her, though, big and bright, before bowing to Leonardo and kneeling to politely wait to be addressed. That, obviously, didn't take very long; they were only doing warm ups right now.

Leo waved him forward.

"Kinpōgetan still only has five hours here today," Sandro explained. "If we have ninjitsu practice at different times, we aren't going to get any time to hang out. May I do warm ups with you in the hopes dad will catch on?"

Egads! Wildcard had not considered this!

 _Wait a second._

"You just used the cute version! '-tan!'" she exclaimed with an accusatory point; she'd heard it, even though her Japanese was terrible. "That is _not my_ name!"

"Whatever do you mean _sukoshi kawaii Kinpōgetan_?"

"I will FIGHT you, _Tinkerbell_!"

* * *

Leo cuffed Wildcard very gently over the head, and that was how she knew she'd gotten distracted for the umpteenth and was most likely staring.

Having Raphael in the dojo was one heck of a distraction! She hadn't had enough time to appreciate every pocket marked crater of the shell, every crack and slash and scar. He was _enormous,_ and every time she caught him in her peripheral, it seemed she had to turn her head to look. Maybe from an evolutionary standpoint that made a form to sense; Raphael was this gigantic, fast, heavy, predatory thing, and tiny creatures like Wildcard ought to take notice and make sure they weren't on the menu. But it wasn't just the _look_ of him which distracted her; Raphael had this deep, full, bass voice that made her nerves tingle every time he made an utterance, like the air itself crackled about him and she got shocked by the static electricity.

That was just _crazy_ feeling. Mikey carried around a hole in the clouds through which sunshine could have penetrated down to the depths of Hades. Donatello's nova was more subtle, like he had magnetic field that optimized mechanical and digital objects within a thirty foot radius around him. Leo's was the least obvious, maybe because he was the most quiet, but he did always smell of freshly pruned green wood, spring water, and sakura blossoms, so that was something. But Raphael, Raphael was like having something positively tectonic moving around in the same space as yourself, a smokey, molten, elemental of basalt and heavy metals held together with a thick mortar of half-cooled magma, all wrapped up in a personal vortex of black debris and lightning.

Having Raphael in the room was like repeatedly being hit by the suspicion one was about to be ambushed by the Baelrog from _The Lord of the Rings._

It was little wonder that Sandro, who was six feet tall and as well-padded out with muscle as a boy nearer the end of his teens than the start, had been so completely demolished in an outright fight between the two. Raphael could have _eaten_ Sandro. Michelangelo came closest in terms of pure muscle volume, but Mikey was several inches shorter and wore a different posture. Raph _owned_ his bulk; it was an integral part of his character, matched by a simmering wildness in his eyes that never really felt quite sane, like he was always a little buzzed on something. Testosterone, probably.

Her opinion on that last bit changed when Sandro botched a roll out of a practice kata, winced, and stayed down on his bad knee longer than he ought to have. The wildness disappeared, the crackling electricity in the air stopped, and that 'simmering' went warm instead of borderline dangerous. Raphael was immediately over there to offer Sandro a very supportive hand up. They took a five minute break in which father hovered over son, making sure he hydrated himself and then methodically checked the range of motion of his leg. And that right there, that was _affection,_ affection without being smothering. By the youthful way Sandro reacted to him, smiling up at him brightly and almost shyly, Sansan knew it was affection and he _liked_ it, a lot.

Wildcard understood, now that she could see it: Raphael had the _potential_ to be an abusive parent, yeah, and he'd toed very close and made at least one major transgression and lots of repeated minor ones, but he _wasn't_ Abusive Asshole Dad, not categorically, not yet. He was this 'dangerous monster,' just a bit sharp, a bit ruthless, a bit _mean;_ but then he was also Dad Grizzly Bear, and Sandro was his adorable little baby bear; and when Sandro got up to resume his practice kata, the look of pride and paternal affection which visibly swelled up in Red Turtle for a brief second was _adorable,_ like a perfect, meme-worthy 'look at dis, i made dis, dis iz mai perfect thing i made, yes'

"Hey, _Leo_ ," drawled Raphael tauntingly. "Might wanna get a refund on that 'student' if she's actually' botchin' her _chūdan no kamae_ _._ Sorta _sad_ lookin!"

Sensei seemed to have been waiting for just that, because instead of looking at Raphael, he looked dryly at his Kinpōgekun, appeared a little smug, and raised a brow, like he was asking her if she was going to take that.

Bristling, teeth clamped down on her tongue, Kinpōge spun and stamped her practice staff hard on the ground and retook her stance. _Okay you giant Red bastard, watch this._

Her sensei's mouth curled into that almost haughty, fierce, fond _sneer_ she'd started to realize might be hers alone. "Good," was his terse comment, and he beckoned her to attack him.

* * *

 _'Sandro's master in ninjitsu is Raphael.'_  
 _'She is my student, and she will come to study at my dojo, and that is final.'_  
 _'The point of Hashi lies in the strength of the relationship between the teacher and the student.'_  
 _'You are stuck with me; I shall not give up on you even if you show up in a Foot recruitment camp tomorrow.'_

Her toes were in the right direction, and she was _sure_ of it because Sensei had stopped stepping near to toe them into alignment

He'd had seized her renewed attention and he'd not let go, throwing three new kata variants at her rapidly and then immediately pushing her to be able to pull off the blocks in sequence. If she managed a block successfully, he'd stand back and solicit her to practice the attack; but that was actually harder than it sounded, and gentle swats and jabs of that staff buffeted her from what felt like every side. Sensei could turn her around and have her facing the opposite way before she knew what hit her.

She started getting the hang of each block, and, wouldn't ya know it, he started randomizing the sequence. By the time she started gaining progress on that, there might as well have been no one else in the dojo at all, she was too busy with reading his body language, reading the future, trying to line up the correct reaction.

The gift of precognition wasn't doing Kinpōgekun any favors and she was having a hell of a time keeping up with her Sensei's intended curriculum. There was no future in which she succeeded at blocking him from the get-go, so she had no way of knowing what to do differently without trying and failing, and it had been awhile since that had been true about anything.

Once upon a time she'd spent a few measly hours not knowing how to throw a knife and it had frustrated her to no end; just one afternoon, nothing more, and then she'd picked it up in leaps and bounds. The only difficult part had been learning to juggle knives with her father, since he was excluded from her precognition, but she'd felt that out pretty quickly and her dad had been a fairly invested tutor (he didn't want her to lose any fingers!)

When it came to parkour and street fighting, Kinpōge had usually watched and picked up moves fast enough to practice basically anything almost immediately, and as soon as she could practice it she could usually see the path forward to mastering it. Watch, mimic, pick the correct future, repeat; _that_ was her typical process. But... then again, she'd usually been watching _kids_ and _amateurs_ and _hobbyists._

Aside from her dad, she also hadn't had very many uber-competent tutors who could totally annihilate her. Ms. Jane had been pretty badass but she also hadn't exactly been training Kinpōge one-on-one. Heck, Ms. Jane had theoretically still been stabbable! Sensei's skill level was sooooo far above her own that that she had to get her head entirely in the present to pay attention to his instruction and learn 'foundation stuff,' and man wasn't that new for her?

She earned those attacks against him, _earned them_ , and struck back as hard and accurately as she could. The lines of his body as he blocked were different than when she did; he was fighting down to her and she was fighting up to him and always would be. When she tried to improvise, he was _always_ fast enough to stop her and he'd shove one of her elbows to line her back up into the proper attack. Eventually she just stopped struggling so hard to catch him off balance; he knew how to fight way, way better than she did, and she needed to _pay attention_ if she wanted to level up to meet him.

* * *

" _Mokusou yame._ "

She knew 'yame' meant 'stop,' but Sensei gestured for her to halt, anyway, in case she hadn't understood. Maybe _he_ ought to have been the one teaching her Japanese, so he knew exactly where she was at. She was panting from exertion and maybe... maybe a little uneven on her feet. She noticed Sandro giving her bewildered glances between his own exercises, but wasn't sure why. What time was it? Was practice over?

It was; they'd gone _late,_ but apparently Raphael's sessions with Sandro were usually long and, anyway, they'd started later than her and Leonardo.

A hand settled lightly on her shoulder, always _huge_ compared to her, urging her towards the side of the dojo so she could sit down. Sensei passed her a bottle of water, and draped a cool towel over her head.

Didn't martial arts practice usually end with some obligatory Japanese phrase Sandro could say perfectly? Which Kinpōge had intentionally never learned at all, not for anybody, because why the hell would she ever adhere to some ritualized chanting made up by other people?

"Arig-arigatou gozai-ma... um..." Kinpōgekun hazarded, looking up to her sensei.

Leonardo had glanced at Raphael to observe, but looked back at her now. "'Arigatou gozaimashita,'" he supplied gently.

"Gozai-ma-shi-ta..."

He nodded more with a deep blink than with his head.

She smiled up at him. "Arigatou gozaimashita, Sensei."

* * *

[Author's Note: It's the formal phrase you traditionally end practice in the dojo with even if you don't speak Japanese, but it literally means 'thank you' and I think Wild means it more earnestly.]


	76. Slight Alterations in Approach

[Author's Note: Wait, did anyone see chapter 75!? Sometimes I get paranoid]

* * *

"Are you already finished?" Donatello wondered, leaning across the table to peer at her Japanese workbook because she did not appear to be working on her homework. What he saw made him raise a brow, because she'd been scrawling hiragana three lessons in advance while leaving the multiple choice questions and translations of her actual assignment woefully unfinished. "What happened?"

"The lessons are _boring_ ," little She-Casey answered him, not looking up from her inscription of 'の.' "Besides, I don't need to read the English letters, I can do the Japanese alphabet."

"Firstly, the 'English letters' are called _romanji._ Secondly, _hiragana_ is a syllabary, not an alphabet,"Donatello lectured. "Are you still sure you want to be skipping those lessons?"

She gave a rebellious shrug and seemed grumpy about something. "When's the next time I'm going to have to know how to introduce the husband of my aunt, order us three beers, explain he is an accountant, and ask whether someone's friend is a prestigious English professor?

"The point isn't to teach you exact sentences," Donatello chastised her for impatience. "It's teaching you a _conversational pattern_. Once you understand the introduction pattern, you can slip in any words you want." That just got him a roll of her eyes. Well then! Donatello went for the big guns. "Do you want to fail the electronic test and give your father another reason to be upset with your grades?"

Wildcard ignored him, glancing back to her textbook several times as she slowly wrote out hiragana she seemed to prefer to her lessons: 'か-ま-え.' That was _kamae_ , the word for a martial arts stance.

Donatello, who technically had no real incentive to continue teaching Wildcard Japanese if she was unwilling to learn, nevertheless regarded her for a moment, watching how diligently she was laboring over her chosen hiragana. He, his brothers, and his nephew had all been raised in a multilingual family, and they'd definitely learned how to say _'no kamae'_ and write ' のかまえ'long, long before 'accountant.' Granted, they'd all later picked up additional languages via more conventional methods, but even Donatello, who considered himself an excellent academic, was inclined to skip ahead to whatever most interested him. It was hardly unfathomable why Wildcard should want her textbook to follow along with what she was hearing in the dojo.

Donatello reached forward, pulled the textbook away from her, and flipped back to the lesson she was supposed to be working on. He crossed out professions, places, names, and beverages, writing in alternative vocabulary. Then he passed it back to her, and took her workbook, and started altering the multiple choice questions and exercises, one right after the other.

"Oh, well that's _much_ more sensible," Wildcard remarked as if the entire universe had finally aligned. "I will totally need to one day introduce the uncle of my friend, order us pizza and orange soda, explain that he is a ninja, and ask whether someone's aunt is a famous super villain."

Donatello lifted up her her amended workbook and swatted her gently on the head with it. "You are still going to need to memorize the original vocabulary lists so that you can pass the tests."

"Yes sir!" she chirped, taking the workbook from him with renewed enthusiasm.

Donatello shook his head and sighed. She wasn't a bad kid. Willful, quirky, and requiring much more than her fair share of effort, yes, but she had a strong and active mind just like Michelangelo's. Her father had likely been correct to pull her of a traditional schooling environment; she wouldn't find teachers who'd see anything other than a troublemaker in need of constantly disciplinary action. They wouldn't teach her the way she best knew how to learn, and ultimately she and school would simply waste one-another's time.

"You've received an A+ on your surreptitious hot sauce project, by the way," he whispered. "Excellently well concealed. Full marks."

She giggled conspiratorially into her Japanese. He patted her on the head.

* * *

Michelangelo was scheduled for patrol that evening. Before he left, he elbowed Leonardo, figuring he'd distract the reigning family workaholic with a question or two.

"Yo, did you and Raphie talk Japanese in the dojo by any chance?"

Leo looked to him like the question'd puzzled him. "No more than a few sentence fragments, whereby he made some commentary and I told him exactly where he could shove it. Why?"

"Ha! Mini just looked grumpy is all. That sorta 'I feel left out' kinda grumpy, like someone talked over her head, maybe? Nearly went AWOL on her homework, or something, but Dee put on his patient face and managed to rope her back in by mixing it up."

Leonardo, who Mikey was starting to remember really did need somebody on his team to point this kind of stuff out, reflected on that. "Thank you for the intel."

Mikey jostled him affectionately and grinned, before trotting across the room towards the door. "Hey Mini!" he called out as he went, reaching out to ruffle her hair and pausing momentarily to grin at her. "Donnie'll be walkin' you home cause I'm Footwatching today!"

Mini's reaction surprised him. Her smile dissolved to an expression of alarm and she froze up for a second. "Sensei's staying _inside_ today?" she asked. "Doesn't that make him break out in hives or something?"

"Hee! Probably! I think Donnie's gonna push him into a spar with Raphael and see if he can get the two of them talking and enjoying each other's company like normal people, ain't that crazy?"

"Oh." Mini didn't seemed entirely thrilled about that. "Well okay, that's legit."

Mikey cocked his head to the side but figured he didn't want to get any further behind in his patrol than he already was (and atract shark-Leo with she smell of dilly-dally into lecturing him about his work ethic, eep), so he patted her back. "See ya tomorrow, Min, kay?" he called, figuring he'd have plenty of time what had her looking so down. She brightened up as she waved goodbye to him.

"By the way," Donatello intercepted Mikey for just a second. "Do _not_ get distracted from patrol to go off _skateboarding._ "

"Well _duh_!" Nobody needed Leo on their tail about the seriousness of patrol. Much as he'd have loved to clock out early, crash Mini's parkour hangouts, and blow kids' minds with his 1337 moves, family safety really did come first.

* * *

Sandro managed to get out of ninjitsu practice right as Wildcard was finishing her schoolwork, which meant the two of them weren't going to get to study together today, but which otherwise looked like it might have been perfect timing:

No sooner had Wild slapped her books closed and sat back with a sigh, than Mom closed in with a curious, "Anastasia?"

Wild froze up like a deer in headlights who was about to be nailed by a speeding coal freighter.

And that's when Sandro arrived, giving Wild a shove and panting, "Sorry I'm late! Did you have English?" as he wiped sweat from his brow.

"No, no problem, it was just Japanese and some easy molecular weight stuff today!" she reassured before pivoting and waving a hand in front of her nose. "Ewww, you smell like molding seaweed again, San!"

"Yeah, my deodorant was suspiciously missing again this morning, now why could that be?"

Little Sister affected innocence for one whole second, but then leaned back with a grin, pulled his Old Spice from a secluded pocket, and tossed it into the air for him to snatch; to the bemused eyebrow raises of both Mom and Raphael, who'd just entered the room behind him.

Sandro rolled his eyes and got his shirt off with an annoyed sigh. "Running gag," he muttered as he deodorized himself, and then went to get himself a new shirt from his room. He wasn't going to waste time showering if Mom wanted to talk to Wild. "Gimme a sec."

"I can't help myself!" Wild complained after him, cupping her hands in a primitive megaphone. "You'd understand if your only options were to smell like rose petals and baby bottom and then someone told you could smell like centaur and Isaiah Mustafa instead!" She glanced back to his mother. "By the way, if you ever need extra cash, Michelangelo's the only personal in the world with enough personal self confidence to pull off combining those two ads into one, no competition. The company that makes Axe would never know what hit them, just, _bam_ , leveled by several hundred pounds of animal magnetism. Plus it would totally help him get an actual date with Megan Fox, just saying, he could use the girlfriend."

Sandro returned to three adult turtles contemplating what had just been said as if they might as well be rapidly crossing themselves and thanking God that Michelangelo had not been present for the airing of this idea. Raphael shared a look with Donatello, who only smiled thinly, looked at the ground, and shook his head.

"Yo," Sandro grabbed her shoulders and turned her back to face April. "Sometimes you have to actually _talk_ to people, not just feint left right and center."

But Mom only smiled and waved her hand. "I think I'm just watching and learning today," Mom said with half a grin, startling both of them. "And maybe making a list of questions for later. I was only going to tell Anastasia that she's dropped her eraser on the ground."

Wildcard blinked several times, looked at the ground, and then looked up at Sandro's mother. Then she asked/said, "Do you dye your hair, because that's an absolutely beautiful color."

" _Called_ it," Donatello announced with a triumphant fist-pump, and Sandro turned to look at him with a confused gape. "I bet Michelangelo fifty dollars she'd flirt with your mother," Donnie said, before looking to April. "Don't mind her, she has no idea how to be friendly, just charming."

"Donnie thinks I'm charming," Wild reported to Sandro, who just sank into a face-palm and slowly shook his head. "Hey, everyone? Let me in on something, why is it Donnie makes funny faces every time he hears I used to play hockey? Because I'm trying not to be a creep asking about random friends and relations, but there's a hockey stick on your weapons' wall, and right now I've literally only got Mikey's cartoons to go by, wherein La Turtle Family is friends with a questionably sane vigilante, who dresses up like a New York Rangers Samurai and beats up drug cartels, J-walkers, and people who toss litter out their windows on the highway all with the same reckless enthusiasm. I'm assuming this person and/or a variant thereof actually exists?"

Raphael cleared his throat and shot a smirk Mom's way (which Sandro couldn't see because Sandro was too busy making an acquaintanceship with the palm of his own hand) and said, "I think I'd _like_ introducing _Friday the Thirteenth_ ta 'er."

"We'll see," Mom said. "He's got more reasons than usto keep his identity a secret, Red. Don't forget that."

Sandro looked to Wild and explained enough so she wouldn't get too curious: "They live topside where anybody could just abduct his kid if they uncovered his identity, so he's pretty solidly retired."

"Ohhhhhhh," Wild epiphanied. "Aw, that makes total sense, forget I asked, Dadhood's serious biz, I don't need to know the details. Hee. Is this child equally insane?"

"He-or-she doesn't like Mikey."

"What!? Mikey!? He's the physical incarnation of sunlight, kittens in bow-ties riding rainbows, and the smell of a freshly cut lawn in summertime; what's to dislike!?"

* * *

"Hey Dad?" he heard his tiny mischief maker calling from somewhere behind him.

"Yeah squirt?" Joker was folding clothing over the ironing board which he never used for any purpose other than folding clothing. Ironing boards just looked incredibly domestic; he'd needed one to match his tulips.

"How does a person get sweat stains out of white fabric?" she inquired. "Is it bleach? Does everything white just take a gallon of bleach and that's the end of things?"

"Hydrogen peroxide," he corrected. "Bleach is better for intense floor conditions than clothing. About fifty percent hydrogen peroxide and fifty percent water and letting it sit for a few hours before washing. If they're really bad, baking soda. Vinegar for blood." He folded a towel. "Why the interest?"

"No reason."

Hmm. Joker continued folding clothes, heard the swish of some fabric in water, and glanced behind him. He found Wildcard in the laundry room—a location Wildcards typically dared not be caught dead, lest they be put to work—leaning over a pail of water and white clothes, pouring in some hydrogen peroxide. Joker stared for a moment. Then he shook his head and went back to folding clothes.

 _Military Grade. Turtle Shaped. Submarine. I'm telling you, they need one.  
_

 _Not now, inner voice. We're supposed to look like normal people._

 _Alright, alright, alright..._

 _..._

 _SHE'S DOING HER OWN LAUNDRY! WHAT DO I DO!? PLAY IT COOL. PLAY IT COOL, DON'T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS._

"So, uh," Joker coughed. "How'd the second day of introduction go?"

"Kinda meh," she specified. "I think they're still kinda getting a feel for having me in the house. Which is kinda weird because everyone knows his mom is basically an investigator and ought to have a million questions and be asking about everything and trying to get to the bottom of stuff."

"Maybe, ah, she's being considerate out of respect for Sandro's feelings?" Joker suggested. _(That's within the realm of the possible right? What are we talking about!? I'm distracted!)_ "You did say you think his parents care about him."

"Yeah," Wildcard said faintly. "I don't know how to talk to her, Dad. Or even how to _think_ about her. She's actually like a super high quality female role model, you know? She's a _leader,_ she took over her whole company from absolutely nothing, from dirt poor poverty. And I think she's actually extremely smart, but unlike with Donatello, it's this _applied_ _smartness,_ it's a weapon she can use to get in these super powerful people's faces and expose all their deepest darkest skeletons-in-the-closet with her powers of deduction and topple their evil empires. It's not confusing about why she's with Raphael, she's _fearless,_ and they're both kinda aggressive, get-er-done, dominant personality types. But how do you win over a person like that?"

"Don't present yourself as a threat. Position yourself as a shoo-in to her 'team' and give her enough time to lower her guard. Manipulate what she sees of your interactions with your boyfriend, and get her to see the positive effect you've had on repairing his relationship with her. Just downplay your involvement in getting him to speak up to her about her controlling behaviors so that she doesn't draw the wrong conclusions or mistakenly believe you planted ideas in his head. Cover your bases. You know this stuff."

"Sandro's not my boyfriend, Dad," she said, and sounded sullen.

 _(Durr, I think you've given her that lecture before and she was equally unimpressed.)_

"Of course he's not. Hmm. Perhaps we're both thinking of the problem wrong," Joker suggested. "How about we think of her as Sherlock Holmes instead. Does that help?"

"That _does_ help. Robert Downy Junior is extremely attractive."

"I _meant_ that you're never going to pull one over on Sherlock Holmes, but you can certainly appreciate him, no?"

"I guess so?"

 _(CONTINUE NOT TO MENTION THE LAUNDRY. STEADY AS SHE GOES.)_ "Well this woman, April O'Neil, also sounds like quite a character in her own right, worthy of appreciation. And you can do her a great favor just by appreciating her from a safe distance and not giving her son any bad advice. If you find something to bond on, well then very well... but otherwise she can grow to like you on her own terms, if you're patient."

His daughter actually did seem to reflect on that advice, which probably meant it was less Evil and Manipulative than previous advice given to her. _(Success?)_

"You know, Channel Six does a lot of pro-mutant coverage," was the conversational suggestion which came to Joker's mind. "A lot of pro-super-hero coverage in general, actually." ( _Yes, that's correct, use your brain J, have real insight)_ "They're not little league players when it comes to winning hearts and minds. Based on their distinctly tolerant lean, you might possibly infer his mother originally set out to make the word a better place for her not-entirely-human son. That could at least give you an 'in' to understanding her better, and perhaps appreciate how her errors were made, no?"

"Oh." Wild thought about this. "Thanks Dad," she said, perking up with a smile.

She left her stained clothing to steep in that peroxide mixture, as advised, and loaded the rest of her things, including all of her socks and apparently some new ones, into the laundry machine. Joker waited till he was sure she was gone, and then groaned and swept the back of his hand across his forehead. "I need to thank that family somehow." He planted his hand on his hip and cocked his head to think. "But _how_?"

 _(cOuGH!) Submarine. (cough!) Turtle-shaped. Military Grade. (cOugh CoUgh!) With torpedoes!_

 _This is not helping, inner voice, we have a Tupperware party to attend at the end of the week, and you should be focusing on what kind of sampler platter you intend on bringing. You are making friends and stuff. It's important._

 _Turtle cookies? Turtle-shaped turtle cookies?_

"And people wonder why your daughter's a crazily distracted jitterbug," Joker muttered to himself as he went back to folding clothing.

* * *

The phone rang.

Pacing back and forward across her room, half kit for going out and making trouble, Wildcard spun towards it and pounced.

"No climbing any skyscrapers!" her brother barked from the opposite end. "I swear, if you've-!"

"I'm okay!" she nearly cried into the receiver, because apparently Sandro didn't think she was weird for flipping out on a weekend when they'd never once gotten to hang out on weekends before now. "I'm okay, I haven't left home, Mikey met me early in the day, remember? And I think he was hoping to tire me out with awesome skateboard moves so I'd fall sleep earlier tonight—but I can't because I'm an _insomniac!—_ but fortunately Dad managed to take the day off even though it's a weekend, and he's downstairs and will probably notice if I sneak out and he'll tail me and I'll get grounded and-!"

"Hey! Hey hey hey, Loudmouth, shh, shh, shh..."

Wildcard sucked in deep breaths and leaned back against the wall. San was on the phone. San san san san san san san.

"You sound like you're having a _panic attack,_ " Sandro said slowly. "I would have called earlier; sorry, kinda lost track of the time."

She laughed weakly. "Five hours sounds like a lot until the _entire_ rest of the day's stretching out before you."

"Yeah, well, Mom didn't forbid me from phone time," Sandro replied a little smugly. "So, listen, here's the plan: During the week I'm going to be available by phone, net, and video game twenty-four seven. We'll hook up some headsets on the XBox and annihilate some newbs together, got it? But today and tomorrow you've gotta power through on your own, because I don't think I should stay on the phone more than fifteen minutes at a time. Don't wanna tempt her into making any more terms and conditions, you know what I mean? Not when she's been pretty great so far and let tons of stuff slide. She could have _grilled_ you, and she just watched and listened instead..."

Wildcard nodded to herself. "Yeah, I get it. S'good. Hey, out of curiousity, does your Uncle Mike have patrol tomorrow?" she asked.

"Oh probably not. It's... Mikey today, and Leo's got the next three days. Why?"

Wildcard took a moment just to hang her head and just breathe. Okay, she just had to hold on for one day. In and out... In, hold, and out.

"Wild?"

"I... just... Can you do something for me? I'm going out on the town till morning with my Dad. Would you text him and tell him to _make sure_ I follow through with that plan, because I'm minorly concerned that in between hanging up this phone and leaving the house I'm going to get possessed by insanity and end up someplace I shouldn't be."

"Oh boy. Yup. Yes I will do that. Texting him as we're speaking, cause my phone can do that."

"Kay," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I feel weird."

"S'okay," Sandro murmured, like it was nothing. "Neither one of us is 'normal.' Your difference just isn't on the outside."

She snickered, and wiped her face. "Love you, bro."

"Heh. I know you do."

"You're supposed to say it back!" she squawked indignantly.

"Hmm. Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

"No flash mobs or stunt planes spelling it out in the clouds? Wellll, if you insist. Love ya, sis."

She curled up with her phone, and tapped her toes together. "Right. Thank you." Sniff. "Though I wouldn't say no to a flash mob, they're pretty cool."

He laughed and that warmed up her soul and calmed her down. She was going to see him the very next day, and the day after that and every day after that. _Forever,_ hopefully.

"Thank you for calling," she sighed slowly out. "Dunno how you knew, seeing as it's _Saturday_ and I should be _happy_ I've even seen you today, not _upset_."

"You ended up on a Skyscraper on a Saturday, remember? A lot of stuff just went down, Wild, just try to take it easy, it makes perfect sense you're freaked out," he told her. "Besides, we're already clingy on good days."

And so they were. And apparently that was just fine.


	77. (Dis) Orientation Day!

The lanky man, tattooed and gauged, face sallow and eyes dark from over-abuse of addictive substances was hungry, aching, _starved_ for a hit; but he'd the wrong one in mind. As he fidgeted and twitched to himself on his path from the street corner, repeatedly fingering the gun in his his grimy hoodie pocket, he was like a shark heading _straight_ for the nearest, faintest scent of money. He was pitiable. He had no idea there was An Old Primordial Monster waiting in the awnings, one hand on its playful pup, restraining the little thing as it frothed at the bit, so very eager to try out its new _black_ costume.

Somebody had to provide the entertainment for that pook of joy before she'd be any good at real espionage this evening. Ergo: the hit.

The lanky man finally pulled that gun out, and used it to threaten college kids who didn't know better than to be out in this neighborhood. He demanded their wallets and cellphones, and they didn't understand their own mortality well enough to realize that, yes, they did need to hand those things over as fast as possible. Lanky man shot the ground to prove he wasn't joking and to scare them into parting with their possessions, even if he himself was shaking from withdrawal. No one here was calm. Nobody but The Cheshire Monster, bemusedly waited for The Play Thing to be ready for Little Pup's loving attention.

Joker nudged her.

Wildcard surged off the roof like a shadow, twirling as she felt to send a knife in advance. The blade bisected the gun through the barrel and hit it hard enough to knock it from her plaything's hand with one last BANG of a pulled trigger. Then she'd elbow-dropped the man upon the ill posture of his back. Lanky man went down with a squeal. There was the hit! Joker grinned wide, watching with vicarious pride.

Some of those college kids tried to grab their things, and others just scrammed immediately, all terrified by all the sudden motion; within seconds the area was clear, and Little Pup had her prey all to herself.

Play Thing flailed his way up to his knees, and Little Pup gleefully tucked her hands into fists. Her toy was disoriented, yes, but he still could see that he'd been confronted by someone half his size. He struck out with a grab and a lunge; she diverted his arm over her shoulder with a shrug a boxer would be proud of. Her retaliatory punch was proof Daddy hadn't been lazy in teaching her fisticuffs to accompany all her flash bangs and knife play. Play Thing reeled and struck wildly out at her, and his complete lack of form or even solid intent suggested he'd never been in a fight before, and needed modern technology to mete out any real violence. Little Pup giggled, ducked, flit, and danced around him until she was absolutely certain she could keep two steps ahead of him for the whole encounter.

 _Then_ she went full Three Stooges on her toy, pulling out a thick portfolio of slapstick pranks to whack him upside the nose, poke him in the eyes, deliver wedgies, and shove and push him around. She used the fallen gun like a carrot on a stick, kicking it about from location to location, which was made all the more ironic by how the barrel damage had effectively destroyed it.

She was never in any danger. And older Chaos lingered overhead, watching with gleaming eyes and a vicarious grin that stretched his face wide, waiting just in case his wee little Pup needed any help.

When the lanky man finally recovered his senses enough to scream. "Who the hell _are_ you!?" through his aching side, crossed legs, and partial blinding, Little Pup got an arm in front of her face like she'd just flourished a cape and proclaimed in her best Batman voice:

"I'm your _worst nightmare._ " Then she grabbed his hood and pulled it down over his head, singing: " _Darkwing Du-uck!_ Whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop!" Naturally, she helped herself to some of those wallets and shouted, "Drugs are baaaddd!" as she vaulted over a nearby hedge and she vanished into the night.

Joker's smile vanished. His gaze lifted. Across the road, a human-sized figured dressed head to toe in black cloth surged to their feet and set off moving fast across the skyline. Muscles bunched; intention cemented; he was running before even fully upright.

* * *

Wildcard hit the wall at a run, scrambling for purchase on the bricks with her fingers, her feet like gecko pads as she used every ounce of grip to get up those last few inches. She flung her arm up and caught hold of the rooftop, and then swung back and forth till she could get her other arm up. She pulled herself up, and had looped one leg over the wall, when tabi-clad feet landed in front of her as light as silk. She looked up through the lines of the future, taking in the _shozoku,_ the black faceless fabric, the prominent glossy mark that looked halfway between a fire and a foot print, just faintly identifiable as red in the dim glow from the street lights below.

Her first thought was 'Wait a minute, this is neutral territory,' her second thought was, 'Well duh that means the Foot are here on occasion,' and her third thought was, 'Gee, I hope Sensei finds me if I've talked myself into a Foot recruitment program by morning.'

Whoever this Foot Ninja was, he wasn't overtly hostile, and none of her future reflections indicated that he (or she?) would attack unless Wild tried attacking first. Even then, he'd try to disarm her before resorting to real violence. That was nice! Maybe he was interested in the spectacle she'd just made? Uh oh. What should she say?!

She completely forgot she hadn't been out alone for the briefest of moments, and then she had a strange wave of vertigo hit her as all her foresight skewing sideways, the color and kaleidoscopic effect squeezed out to nothing. That meant there were no alternate futures to be had. She was _passive,_ a person at the theater watching a movie, and she had a beautiful, front-seat ticket to the show; She had zero input, or, maybe, someone else had seized the remote control.

Dad came off the janitorial access roof like a panther, dressed in unassuming old blue jeans, coat included, with a hood. The Foot ninja must have heard something, because he got halfway through a duck and roll before Dad hit him. A tanto was drawn, but Dad got ahold of the wrist that had it and turned the arm at a bad angle. A switchblade flashed across her vision, and then blood had splattered in a wide red ark, sparkling like wine in the illumination from those streetlights. The ninja went limp, and Dad effortlessly wiped off his own switch blade and shoved the falling body off the roof.

He hadn't gotten a single droplet of incriminating evidence anywhere on himself, and beckoned for her to follow.

They didn't talk about what had happened.

This hadn't been the first 'ninja' her father had ever gotten the jump on, and also it probably wouldn't be the last.

* * *

A bad storm blew in around noon, after a positively bleak morning. Statten Island blocked the the brunt force of it, but south Jersey City took a walloping too, with waves crashing up against the breakers, and reports on the first round of flooded basements began filling the news channels as overtaxed and badly maintained pumps finally gave up the ghost after laboring so hard through the hurricane earlier in the year.

"Hmm," Joker said to himself as he paused in his perusal of the Sunday paper and flicked through the morning news stations. Wildcard was still unconscious where she'd dropped on the living room couch last night, and Joker glanced her way.

Rainy Sundays and noontime were, sadly, good days for reflection.

Joker wasn't getting any younger. For now he was still just a little faster than anyone he'd caught tailing his daughter; for now he was still one step ahead of all the eyes and ears of the world. But that wouldn't always be true, and he was already starting to feel the exhaustion of age settling in at the end of a hard day running with her on the roof of the city. Every year that passed, he was a little slower, a little grayer; and Wild, she was waxing as he waned. No matter how much wisdom and experience came with age, the day was still fast approaching when Joker would fail to cover all his bases, fail to protect her, and she'd end up blasting loud and thundering onto someone else's radar. The question was just: _Whose?_ Would the fallout be manageable?

Oh, he still had one _hell_ of a lot of aces hidden up his sleeves. He had tricks upon tricks upon tricks, smuggled away in every nook and cranny of every major city in the USA. But one day his daughter was going to have to handle all of these things herself, was going to have to pass her own acid test, and she wanted to stay in place in Jersey now. No matter how badly he wanted to keep her secret, hidden, and unobserved, he'd eventually fail. She'd end up getting her reputation out there. Her modus operandi. Her name. _Wildcard._

Out in the world real monsters and real 'heroes' who often were worse than the gutter slime they shoveled.

Technically he'd already failed her once. Someone _had_ caught a whiff of her, with Joker none the wiser. Someone _had_ tailed her, watched her, taken an interest, recorded her behaviors, made a judgement about her, and acted upon it: The eldest Hamato brother.

Bat Turtle was over a decade younger than Joker. Younger, faster, and preternaturally stealthy for something so big. With a techno genius in his basement to supply him with alien technology, city-wide surveilance, and the home field advantage, the Hamato leader had kept tabs on his little girl for months, months during which he could have done or decided _anything,_ and _that_ was the scary part: That ability he had to judge her.

As a parent who'd been forced to accept his little girl was never going to be normal—no matter what he'd originally wanted for her—that concept that someone else, some other adult, some entitled goody-two-shoes arbitrator of justice might _judge her_ made his skin prickle, his fingers twitch, and his mouth dry. She was too young to be anything yet: Good, Evil, Chaotic, Disciplined, Right, Wrong, _whatever,_ she was still just a child with her entire future open to her, and no one had the right to box her, to label her, to decide who she was and what her limitations were. Not even Joker.

And yet...

... Another truth was slowly, steadily settling in on him: Joker had practically raised Wildcard in a vacuum most of her life, and he couldn't continue doing it, firstly because it had done her a lot of harm, and secondly because she was old and wily enough to start giving _him_ the slip. He didn't know how to raise the kind of person she seemed to want to become, and if he held on too tight, if he didn't _share_ her with a tutor, if he didn't find her a proper 'coach,' the way any parent of a future Olympic athlete would need to do, then Joker would be the one limiting her. Weakening her. Holding her back from her potential and her identity and her ability to create her own safety. It would be the fastest way to lose her respect and trust.

 _She likes that family. She likes almost each and every member of that family. Whether it's because they look so strange, and that has helped her natural curiousity bypass the trust issues I've inflicted upon her, or whether each of them really does have that level of complexity and character that would naturally draw her attention, she's noticed them, and they've noticed her, and both sides are drawing closer to one another. The natural conclusion of this, if nothing goes wrong, if I don't interrupt, is that they'll be the ones helping me raise her into her final adult form. Am I okay with that?_

Joker looked over at his daughter and breathed deep.

 _I always imagined I might lose you one day, squirt. That someone might take you from me, or that you might just hate me or hate what I've been. Feared losing you. Dreaded it. But this... this slow release, this 'remaining relevant to you' while slowly handing part of your mind over to someone else..._

Well. Both he and his daughter's spunk had survived her first day of Kindergarten, hadn't they? And this, this was just like college for super people. Ninja college.

Didn't mean he wanted to miss out on Orientation Day. _Hmm._

* * *

Donatello yawned and looked down in surprise at his phone, blinking over his coffee to see that Michelangelo was calling him. He answered quickly. "Mikey? Did something go wrong?"

"Uh, Dee!" Mikey sounded nervous. "Are the parents up yet by any chance?"

Purple looked over to where April and Raphael had just shuffled in in search of their morning coffee. "Yes. Why?"

Donatello was not at all prepared for Michelangelo's answer, especially because Mr. Hamilton had by all appearances seemed happy to remain detached from the entire situation (and from reality and his daughter's life in general) up until this moment. Donnie stayed there transfixed for a moment, rapidly enumerating the Lair's multiple security measures and trying to think whether any needed updates or repairs. Then he tucked the phone to his shoulder and reached out to catch April's shoulder.

"Ape, Anastasia's _father_ is asking if he can meet us today. He's... he's willing to accompany her down here."

Raphael spun about and glowered, coffee in hand. "... Huh," he said.

"Her father is talking to Mikey right now?" April asked.

"Yes, Mikey has met him once before." Donnie looked up to his brother. "Her father doesn't seem to do much to rein her in, but he's gone several months knowing she's hanging out daily with a boy whose parents he hasn't met. It's... it's not altogether insane to want to make an acquaintanceship with our family."

"No," April agreed with a frown. "No, it's _normal_. Is this person dangerous?"

" _We_ sure are," Raphael muttered. "And there's a lot of us."

"Point," April squinted over at Donatello, and then reached out for the phone. Donatello gave it over to her and she raised it to her ear. "Mikey?" she asked. "Tell him I hope he likes his coffee black."

Mikey's response sounded like a gush of enthusiasm, and April confirmed her stance before saying she'd see them soon and hanging up. She handed the phone back over to Donatello.

"Tell me everything we know or can deduce about this person," she instructed.

Donatello reached out for his tablet. "I'll start with how he doesn't appear to own a credit card, and made the down payment for their house in cash."

"Sounds like a recipe for queer social recluse already," she muttered, coming up beside his shoulder. "Suppose that's to be expected; nobody with a normal psyche profile produced a child that peculiar. We looking at ex-mercenary? Military? Hippy?"

"Can't tell," Donatello admitted, swiping to bring up file and passing them to her. "He doesn't like leaving paper trails; he's _nobody,_ and he probably likes it that way. Debit card trail points to most of his purchases coming from Walmart, Target, and the corner gas station. There's a couple things from local pizza places, the Hobby Lobby, Home Depot, and a specialty shop where he purchased her Aikido Gi from. The one thing I can definitely tell you is he's not Foot, and that's only cause I've got some wire transcripts proving they were trying to see if they had any intel on him, because his bar's on neutral territory and they like to keep an eye on the area. They came up with a few bank accounts, shipping transactions, maybe a few under the table deals down at the docks that involved tax free booze, and a boring alias or two, nothing particularly exciting."

"Hmm. What's Sandro said, if anything?" she inquired.

"I haven't actually incorporated Sandro into my investigation," Donatello admitted. "Mikey told me he had this gut feeling he wouldn't approve of us snooping around his friend, even for security purposes, and Sandro had yet to speak to you, so... Instead I had Michelangelo figure out where she lived, and then I tried to keep most of my investigative work polite and digital so I didn't have a protective teenage boy freaking out on me. Sandro _has_ told me he's met her father, in person." April looked sharply up to him. "Apparently the man's reaction was to start packing her lunches for two, and, as a result, Sandro is now very fond of his egg-salad sandwiches."

"Oh that was _extremely dangerous,_ Sandro," April muttered. "Okay. So. Definitely not with the Foot, or we'd have been hit in the Achilles heel already. What else?"

"They have a quaint A-Frame," Leonardo said as he emerged from the hallway and went in search of apples. "The tulips out front are lovely."

"Dhat's very helpful," Raphael sassed over coffee. "Thanks fah dat. Really. Award winnin' intel."

"Um," an awkward fourteen year old boy shuffled out from the hallway behind Leo, looking wide-eyed between them all. "What's... going on... guys?"

* * *

Wildcard was flipping out.

She wasn't sure whether she wanted to glom onto her father's side or if she wanted to demand hugs from Michelangelo, but for some reason she wasn't doing either. The last meeting between Mikey and Dad had involved Dad threatening Mikey at knife point, and since she'd never gotten around to actually confessing to her dad that Mikey was maybe acting like her Mom/Uncle/Rent-A-Dad while she was away from home, it didn't seem appropriate to ask for stress-alleviating-snuggles from the aforementioned giant orange turtle. Dad was in the same jean coat from the night before; the only difference now was his hood was down (and he obviously had no face paint on) and ha-ha-haaaa this was NOT what Wild needed today!

What were the rules!? _Help! Universe! Provide an instruction manual, please!_ Wait a minute. _Actually, no, don't!_ Wild didn't really want to know; it might tell her something she disliked, besides, she liked making up her own rules!

But Mikey and Joker Mr. Hamilton were the _adults_ here, so their clumsy attempts to socialize with one another and joke about the decor (it was a sewers, ha ha, rat poo) made more sense than the hesitant little smiles Michelangelo flashed her way under Dad's all-seeing stare. Right? Arg! Dad caught her eyes and pursed his lips, like she amused him. She gave him her best grumpy-cause-hormones teenage glower while Mikey wasn't looking. He reached out and ruffled her hair, and leaned close to drawl a curious and affectionate question:

"Why so _serious?"_

Good question. Hmm.

The turret-guarded, well-concealed, and heavily reinforced blast door which served as the primary entryway to the Turtle Family's humble abode, swung open in front of Michelangelo.

 _Please Master Splinter I'm so sorry for praying to you cause you aren't even my Grandfather, but I don't have anyone else to pray to and I'm kinda sure you're the only relevant spiritual party regardless, so please please please please please please super please with extra cheese and cheese stuffed crust please let them like my dad...!_

* * *

[Author's Note: I feel like this whole tulips thing says something tacit about certain rare personality types or something XD XD]


	78. This is Mine (?)

"Name's 'Raphael,'" said one father to another, as a massive, alien hand was extended in greeting.

"'Andrew,'" exchanged the second father, taking the handshake with equal firmness.

"Ah hear ya a bartendah?" prompted the first man conversationally, as if it were just interesting trivia he'd overheard recently.

"I am," said the second man, as if they had never met before. For it was written in the grand unspoken rules of Manhood that no grander friend could be found than the random bloke who helped cover for accidental bar happenings with The Missus. "It's a rather bleak watering hole called 'Cashew's' halfway into Lafayette, but it's what pays the bills."

"Cashew's?" The giant turtle cocked his head like he needed to think. "Know the place. Heard the last tender took a bullet to the knee?"

"If that's all that happened to him, I'd be terribly surprised," Andrew Hamilton drawled with a wry, half-lidded expression. "I had a Rhinoceros break down crying about his poor life choices at four AM last week, after punting three people through a window. He ended up going home with one of the serving girls after they bonded about growing up in Ukraine. I told her to let him know he'd make a very good bouncer if he sobered up and agreed to put in his hours at Alcoholics' Anonymous."

The assembly of humans and turtles, adults and children, watched in dead silence for a few seconds. But Raphael only nodded to himself and sucked in a breath between his teeth before agreeing, "Yeah, sounds like Cashew's alright." His weight changed, levering more of his shell to the side such that he was no longer 'coincidentally' blocking any view of his wife and child. April had her arm around Sandro's shoulders. "Ya got the night off, den?"

"Only half, I'm afraid, and with the storm worsening, I'll imagine I'll have to head out in an hour or so to ensure I make my shift." Andrew Hamilton gave an apologetic smile, and then reached over to settle a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "But Anastasia tells me you and your wife spend most of the week in New York, and I don't actually get very many weekends off. So I thought perhaps if everything was going okay, today might be the only good opportunity I'd have for awhile to actually meet you. And I must confess I've secretly been looking forward to it."

"Zhat so?"

"Yes. When I think of the sorts of people my little mischief-maker _could_ have found wandering around Greenville, the shy, respectful, and well-spoken boy she eventually ushered in my front door was a complete and most welcome surprise. I had never been addressed as 'Sir' so many times in one sitting before."

Raphael laughed. "S'a pleasure ta meet ya, Andrew." That great shell turned as Raphael waved them inside. "C'mon in, we's about ta sit down fah breakfast. Ya drink coffee?"

"I'd love some."

* * *

Wildcard hadn't been sure which member of the turtle family would be standing in front to address her dad first. Donatello? He was the nexus of this family most days, and probably had the most interesting and innocent questions, but he didn't have the necessarily dominant personality type to put himself at the front of the column. April? She was the leader of her individual family unit, but she was also the smallest and least capable of physically defending herself. Leonardo? He was the eldest, but he was also the quietest and tended to let other people crash into things first while he drilled to the most important details.

No, of course it was Raphael who stepped forward to greet them.

Raphael was the turtle team's Linebacker, keeping his valuable Quarterback(s) safely back behind his shell so that he could handle any dangers and at least intimidate everything else. By the look of things, Donatello was accessing his security computer via tablet, which meant he was probably scanning the house atrium (and her and her father) for explosive devices and weaponry.

 _One knife,_ she'd warned her father.

 _That's all I ever need,_ he'd answered with a grin. _The rest is all bells and whistles._

Gotham's most notorious archvillain was hundreds of feet under ground, in what amounted to a highly secure post-military-grade bunker, in the same room as one of the country's most infamous investigative journalists _and_ her gigantic, violent, and at least mildly psychotic 'superhero' husband. Joker had one switchblade tucked casually into a back pocket, and Raphael had two sai which, scaled up to match his size, were enough to skewer a person through from shoulder to shoulder. There was no contest between them in the fight. But that was the funny part, wasn't it?

Joker didn't have to fight, because he wasn't Joker. He didn't have to clear his name, or prove himself, or be somebody he wasn't; he _was_ nobody. The identity became him, and he became it, and everything else was gone from him. He _was_ just a strange, poor, hard-working, imperfect, unrecognizable man, holding a tin of freshly baked home cookies which Michelangelo was already salivating over.

Dad was like this perfect, functionally ignorant shape changer, whose shadow grew long and unnoticed behind him and curled into this great and majestic old Cthulhu demon which occasionally added or removed things from his identity as required.

Dad could pretend to be a panther in the night, he could pretend to be a soldier, or bartender, or triple Noble Peace Prize winning author, and he could pretend so well it became reality; and ultimately that made him nobody at all, and that must have been how men transcended into ideas and became gods. If Dad had known how to play the fiddle, he and Satan could have won look-alike contests with one-another; so much evil in such plain and dusty clothes.

 _Except he's not evil. He's just Dad. Stop giving him away with your thoughts._

So, what else? Focusing on Raphael? Raphael was looming over them, and that dangerous simmer was back in his eyes, but he had a gleam to his smile that, while predatory, was still strangely welcoming; and Wildcard really did appreciate what Sensei had meant about winning him over as an ally. Raphael could have been the one throwing barbed and dangerous questions all over the place, insinuating dangerous things dad would have needed to dance around, but instead he just wanted a better look at the man.

Maybe Dad _would_ have had an easy time dodging bullets(probably, right?), but Wildcard was already feeling extremely insane this morning, and she kinda needed fewer stimuli if she was to ever possibly calm down. Seeing (hearing, experiencing) Raphael angry would have been _too much_ and her nerves would have exploded out of her body.

Her stare was locked on Red Turtle even now, and her hand was in her pocket fiddling with _her_ switchblade (open shut open shut open shut open shut), cause even though she probably should have looked at someone else, anybody else, and smiled and waved ecstatically, all she could think about was Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad and how _scared_ she was, even if maybe she didn't have to be; Dad had taught her everything she knew, and he was ten zillion times better than her at all of it. (But fear of being separated from him had fueled her parkour and knife play and street fights for the majority of her childhood; and these were _definitely_ people who could find out everything and take him from her.)

Someone nudged a chair and the screech of wood on tile made her jump and she looked towards the sound.

Cobalt eyes caught hers and staked her down like a sail in a windstorm. Sensei stared through her. He knew she was playing with the switchblade in her pocket. He knew she was having a fit. (Of what? What was wrong with her?) He somehow knew everything she did, which meant it was a good thing she'd stopped thinking about r-e-k-o-j; except she wasn't scared of Sensei anymore, not the way she'd been down to her bones on the rooftop, not the way she was of Raphael and of April. Peering across the crowd at her mentor, at where he was standing tense and graceful beside the kitchen table, she had the oddest certainty that he wanted to come over to her, but didn't know _how_.

 _'You were asking me if I saw a monster. A lost cause. All I see a very troubled and brave little girl.'_  
 _'Everything is okay. Everything is going to be okay.'_  
 _'—the relationship between teacher and student—'_

"C'mon in," Raphael was saying. "We's about ta sit down ta breakfast."

The cobalt eyes vanished as Leo got out of everyone else's way. Wildcard blinked very rapidly, and felt Michelangelo ruffle her hair, and Donatello leaned near April to drawl a wry, 'I see where she gets it from.'

Then she realized they'd done it, the snake was in the hen house, except—ironically—this was a newly vegetarian snake, who'd sworn off eggs in his old age; and, despite letting the devil into their home, the Hamato family wasn't in any real danger. The Clown _wasn't_ actually _there,_ only the Father was; and Dad just wanted to meet his little girl's friend's family, to introduce himself and maybe make friends, too, and swap recipes and _be normal_ and have all the things normal people got to have.

Sandro got to her side through the crowd, somehow (had he gotten past Raphael, or was Raph and Dad suddenly on the other side of the room, with a good ten meter safe zone between potential dangers and the family's baby boy?), and Sandro reached out and grasped her face with both hands. His fingers curled behind her neck and he pulled her close, and she automatically raised her head to touch her forehead to his as he leaned over.

Crazy sloughed out from within her like mudslides, like whole mountains of monarch butterflies all taking flight simultaneously. She became conscious of her high adrenaline, and her outlandish stress, and her many crazy fears, and she got to enjoy how wonderful it felt to have somebody there who was often just as scared, but in a _different way,_ and usually at different times,so that they matched like puzzle pieces.

This was her brother. These were her turtles. This was her place.

E-exceptit all could be _taken away_ from her if something went wrong went wrong with Sandro's parents ( _by_ Sandro's parents) _;_ and Dad kinda knew what she felt, and Dad _cared,_ and Dad was trying to blend in and take some of the burden of proof onto himself and _help her;_ he was making sure she made the cut with Sandro's parents so she wouldn't lose anyone, because this place, this 'Lair,' with its too-big furniture, and huge couch, and its dojo and bonzais, its kitchen and old jute box, and its weird preoccupation with incense, this _physical place_ was more akin to a home than any other place she'd ever stood on earth.

"You okay?" Sandro—Yin—whispered into her soul.

"Not exactly," Yang admitted to him, dazed. "But better."

They couldn't get away with forehead touches for long, though, not when they might look far too intimate (like a prelude to a kiss?) to all those easily confused humans (silly silly humans). Sandro straightened up out of the embrace and pressed a very quick, beak-disguised, _actual_ kiss to her hair, and she melted a little cause d'awww Sandro was so self-conscious about those kisses and he'd given her one anyways.

"Let's get some breakfast," he said the most beautiful thing in the world to her, food, food was beautiful.

"Kay," she let him tug her along by the hand. Her: A little motorless boat floating along some weird little high or low or _cloud_ or wherever she was, tugged along in the happy wake of of a nicely outfitted battle cruiser. Things did feel better, yes, definitely better. She even turned a smile up to Sensei as they passed him, but he was affecting to be much more interested in the pantry (as if he could actually cook anything!) and was unavailable for comment.

* * *

Sandro sat very close to Wildcard, stacking pancakes onto her plate and carefully watching the parents. He made sure she started eating, and kept a hand on the back of her neck as he stabbed up his own food onto his fork. From the look of things, Wild's dad had waited for the last possible day on which Sandro's parents could have chosen to 'interview' her, only to spontaneously push her out of the way and slip himself quietly into the line of fire. He'd subverted the whole feeling of the meeting, because whereas Wild would have been a high-strung, babbling goose, her father had arrived wearing a wry but soporific expression and bearing cookies.

Those cookies were in the middle of being rigorously poison tested, but they were pumpkin cream and Michelangelo was very obviously waiting for Donnie to pronounce them edible.

After a few minutes of listening to his and her parents discuss basically nothing at all, Sandro quietly came to the conclusion Wildcard's father really did know exactly what he was doing. Wildcard had been scheduled to run a gauntlet of justifications and explanations for all the things 'wrong' with her. Now, instead, all her father had to do was find her simultaneously _lovable_ but _challenging to raise,_ and suddenly everyone was on the same team. He had all her same speech patterns, but they were coming out at a fraction of her usual speed. His easy, measured pauses turned his stranger comments into bemused reflections on the state of the world, ones which anyone could chuckle at. He implied volumes just by existing in a state of mixed similarity and contrast to her. And, unlike Wild, he wasn't particularly _alarming._ Wild was a whirlwind, and everything she said sounded dubious even when she was being completely serious until you grew to knew her better. Her dad came off as this calm, softly-spoken creature, with a gentle baritone and an almost tenderly lilting cadence.

Which was crazy. Sandro actually knew who Wildcard's father _was,_ and that man was ten billion times the cause for alarm Wildcard could _ever be._ Right now, at that very moment, a completely batshit insane, homicidal, ingenious, manipulative, super villainous Clown Prince was sitting in their kitchen holding a placid conversation with his parents about the weather and Wild's schoolwork.

And it was working. His parents had more or less forgotten Sandro and Wild were still in the room. They were talking about work and different cities and sports teams now.

Sandro shifted half onto Wildcard's chair, and slipped an arm completely around and over her, so she was tucked partially into the corner space between his chin, shoulder, and plastron. Nobody looked; nobody commented. He made sure she drank her orange juice.

"Dojo?" he asked into her temple as she finished.

She bobbed her head, maybe eager to be out of the room where all the terrifyingly mundane miracles were occurring. Sandro nodded and got up with her, and the two of them slipped out of the chair and quickly brought their dishes to the sink. They found Uncle Leo there, quietly pouring himself another cup of tea, ever the wall fly. Wildcard stuffed her plate into the dishwasher, turned about, and grabbed hold of Leo's kimono sleeve and tugged. He glanced down at her. Sandro hesitated.

"Dojo," she told the older turtle.

For the briefest of moments, Uncle Leo stared at her with a completely vacant expression. Like he had no idea who she was, and hadn't heard her speak. Like she was a stranger to him.

Then this little spark came back into his eyes, and he inclined his head in agreement and made a discreet shooing gesture to suggest Sandro and Wildcard ought to go to the dojo ahead of him, with the implication that he'd be joining them both shortly for their regularly scheduled practice.


	79. Take the Stage

[Author's Note] Make sure you saw the last chapter...!

* * *

"Was Uncle Leo acting weird?" Sandro asked as they changed into protective gear.

"Looks like," Wild agreed. "It's why I reminded him we have practice."

Normally the idea Leo might need to be reminded not to be late to his own strictly structured ninjitsu practice hours would have been heresy, but right now Sandro wasn't so sure. Joker and Leo had never previously spoken, to Sandro's knowledge, and yet one of them had sort snatched up the other's daughter as an apprentice. Without any form of parental consent. If Uncle Leo was in doubt about that, then they were in trouble, because Leo took what he should do and how he should behave very seriously, and didn't know how to tell when a situation actually warranted self-sacrifice.

"Hey, look," Sandro cleared his throat. "This could mess with his head. He'll try and, like, _withdraw_."

"No," Wild said. "He can't. He promised."

Sandro looked at her, worried because he knew her head wasn't in a normal reasoning zone right now. "Wild, talking from experience, here. You saw the tickle fight, we're on the same page with regards to his emotional reasoning capabilities. Right? They're _bad_."

"He promised," she repeated. "I'm his student, that's what he said, and I'm holding him to it."

Sandro sawed his beak together and looked down at his shin guards as he strapped them into place. He nodded quickly. "Kay."

"It needs to mean something," she said, and her voice had thickened.

"Yang." Sandro snaked an arm around her and crunched her to his side. He tucked his forehead to hers and held her there. She was shaking apart under his fingers.

Neither one of them had the emotional or mental fortitude to figure out what they thought about Gotham's Joker sitting down to a polite conversation with the Mutant Ninja Turtles. Wild couldn't even manage a damn joke, which meant it was _bad._ The two of them were basically just waiting and praying right—

"—Can we go light some incense for your grandfather which I don't believe in but it would make me feel better?" she mumbled.

"Let's do exactly that," Sandro agreed, and he stood and pulled her to her feet.

* * *

Still humbled by the realization she and her own teenager had a lot of things to work out, April O'Neil was feeling allergic to critiquing anybody else's parenting skills.

That didn't mean she couldn't be curious! Anastasia was an incredibly _peculiar_ little girl, and 'curious' was already April O'Neil's default emotional state to begin with. At this point, she could have whipped out a clip board filled with bullet pointed lists of questions and interrogated Andrew Hamilton for hours! She was biting down her on her lip so as not to steamroll the poor man, sieving out how to ask the most important things. By the understanding expression he gave her, Andrew Hamilton was on the same page as her, a little nervous and waiting for her to gather her bearings so that she could lead the conversation wherever it needed to go.

Orientation. April craved _orientation,_ to understand the who-what-why-when-how governing the ground she and everyone else stood on.She was starting to get a sense of what Andrew was like, just by listening to him speak, and she had the niggling sensation she might actually _like_ him. He reminded her, oh so slightly, of Donatello, but she nevertheless had three big spheres of concern: She wanted to know the basics of how dangerous he might be, how discrete and trustworthy he might be, and how he _felt_ about Anastasia and Sandro's friendship and, as a function, how he felt about Sandro's family.

 _Normal people often end up making friends with the parents of their kid's playmates._

For some reason, it almost hadn't occurred to April O'Neil that a real adult could possibly be responsible for bringing Anastasia Hamilton into the world, much less a parent who _cared_ enough about his little girlto want to meet _April and Raphael_ on short notice.It was almost strangely flattering to _be_ the parents of a little girl's new 'best friend,' regardless of how odd (or 'pointy,' as Leo had put it) that girl was. Suddenly she and her turtles had someone to interact with on their own level, an adult who could be questioned about his child and her upbringing; who might, possibly, be an ally in both their kids' futures.

That depended on a lot of things, though. April had many more concerns than a normal parent.

Most kids didn't meet one another over three corpses; something wasn't quite 'right' with Anastasia, and so something also must have been 'wrong' with her father. That didn't necessarily mean this family was bad news; April was a strong advocate for mutants, superheroes, special-ops retirees, and other peculiar people who didn't fit the mold for a normal civilian. After all, April and her turtles constituted a _ninja clan,_ and if that didn't scream 'outside standard social order,' nothing did.Each and every one of them had killed people when necessary (and Raphael had definitely killed some people unnecessarily), and then on top of that they'd also fought aliens, demons, and clones from alternate dimensions, which—as a statement—said a lot about the dangerous life they led.

Which was another topic she needed to ask Mr. Hamilton about. Was he aware there was a certain level of danger inherent to socializing with them? That one of them was training his daughter in ninjitsu? Come to think of it, April still didn't know exactly what the _objective_ of Anastasia's ninjitsu lessons were. Splinter had trained April primarily so April could defend herself; did Leo intend on training Ana for this reason, because socializing with Sandro would potentially put her in danger, or did he have something else in mind? The way he'd planned out that apple stunt, and then called her 'My Pupil,' like it deserved capital letters, had April worried. What did _Anastasia_ expect the result of her training to be? How informed was Mr. Hamilton on the whole topic?

These weren't even the full extent of April's concerns! As the leader of a large corporation, April O'Neil was a public figure, and while the Enquirer frequently ran pieces about her and her association with the Knightwatcher, if someone started sending real photographs of her with her turtles to another major news company, it would be an absolute scandal. April had _plans_ for how to handle that kind of news if it ever broke, but that didn't mean she was some kind of daredevil who wanted to see if all her cunningly laid out feints and ripostes would actually work.

The Hamato family had other major secrets, which any father-of-a-friend was bound to become aware of. Casey Jones' identity, Shadow Jones' existence, Hamato Sandro's existence, information about Leatherhead and his girls, the location of the family farm, the town in Colorado where Robyn and her father had settled, and, to a lesser extent, information about every super hero and mutant around the Hudson; these things were well-kept family secrets, in part because of how few people knew about them. There was always the chance Andrew Hamilton might prove himself a decent human being, but there was also a risk he was unhinged in some way, or that he had some egregious weakness that would lead to him selling information about their friends and family. And that was a problem, not just for the same age-old reasons it had always been a problem, but now also because Sandro had just begged her for help viditing the aboveground world, and that would only _maybe_ work if the Foot hadn't the barest inkling they ought to be looking for a covered up kid, six feet in height, with five fingers on each hand.

Small talk was at least giving both sides of this meeting a moment to enjoy just being _people._ Raphael, in particular, was showing off he could be treated like a 'normal' man, and not like some kind of monster or extraterrestrial. Still, Andrew Hamilton had been up front that his time was limited, and they had a lot of ground to cover.

"So, Andrew, what is exactly you think about Anastasia coming down here to visit our family? On a daily basis, no less?"

Hazel eyes turned to her and Andrew Hamilon raised a brow and tapped his coffee mug. "I think it means I have free babysitting services," he replied after a long pause, and arched a brow. "Mrs. O'Neil, is my daughter imposing on your family?"

"Oh," April lifted her hands slightly to wave them in the negative. " _No!_ I mean, Raphael and I are still discussing the whole situation, but she's certainly no _imposition!_ " Still, now she was curious. "Why was that your first concern, if I might ask?"

"Ah." Andrew lowered his gaze his to coffee and contemplated his answer for a moment, and then looked back up at her. "It's just that I haven't had a lot of... _help_ raising Anastasia. I don't have any close family, so it's not like I've had anyone to fall back on before. I know from experience that she's a handful, but I also work full time... Knowing where she's going and who she's hanging out with has actually done wonders for my mental health. That said, I don't want to leech off of someone else's family."

"I would babysit Mini for _free_ any day!" Mikey cooed, leaning across the table. "Do you need help because I will totally come over your guys' house...!"

"Excuse me, Sunshine," Mr. Hamilton said to him with a dry squint, "I am trying to be _humble_ here."

"Hey!" Michelangelo was too distracted thinking of exciting things to actually hear that response. "If you work at a bar, does that mean we can get discounts on drinks!?"

April covered her face. Raphael scowled like he was contemplating reaching over and hitting Mikey upside the back of the head. Mr. Hamilton said, "Oh, I would never serve you alcohol, dear."

Mikey jumped in alarm, "What! Why?" Raphael and April looked over curiously.

"It would just feel terribly irresponsible of me," Andrew sputtered, "like serving Jägerbombs to a squad of teenagers with forged IDs."

"I'm thirty!" Michelangelo wailed in protest to Raphael's explosion of laughter. "And I weigh a lot!" Oh that _really_ got Raphael laughing.

Andrew Hamilton hrmed thoughtfully. "I'll tell you what, if you can get your handler over there to write you out a signed permission slip, I'll consider mixing you a piña colada and we'll see how you handle yourself."

"Oh yeah, this is Donnie!" Mikey apparently had no problem deciding who was qualified to write him a permissions slip, and reached back to slip an arm around Don, who gave a distracted wave from where he was finishing up with those cookies. "He's the smart one; he's Sandro's home school teacher, and he's the one teaching Mini—Wild—uhhhh, Anastasia—Japanese!"

Mr. Hamilton snapped his fingers and pointed. "Thank you for reminding me." He leaned forward to peer curiously towards the busy turtle. "Foreign languages are an important component of college prep, you did me a _tremendous_ favor and I've never even spoken to you before. How exactly do you feel about tutoring her? I wanted to ask you about something..."

Donatello held up one finger to indicate he needed a second longer. Then he scooped up the tin of cookies, and gave it a gentle toss as he turned about to rejoin them. "What sort of thing?" he inquired with a curiousity and cheer befitting someone who'd found the lean of this entire conversation rather interesting or even entertaining.

(Behind him, Michelangelo assaulted the cookie tin out of the air, and snatched one out and take a massive chomp out of. "Ahmigawdddd, deese ah so gguuuuddd!" he gushed, smiling, into mouthfuls of pumpkin cream.)

Mr. Hamilton rubbed his fingers an thumb together in a thoughtful tell and then said, "Well I'm afraid I'm old-fashioned Luddite—just a few years too old to have gotten swept up in the digital age—but I've wanted to put Anastasia in computer science classes so she can properly learn her way around technology. Trouble's been I can't teach or grade them."

"Consider it done," Donatello replied with a cheeky grin.

"Just like that?" Andrew asked, still uncertain where he stood with them.

"I'd like nothing more an an excuse to keep them _learning_ something instead of trashing my foyer," Donatello agreed. "About why you pulled her out of school: I'm guessing the traditional environment wasn't doing much for her?"

"God, _no,"_ Andrew scoffed, beleaguered. "She'd started climbing out bathroom windows, walking away from recess, or even just pulling the fire alarm." Then, apparently recalling April was still there and might develop a less than stellar opinion of his daughter, he looked quickly to her and said like he was pleading for a little sympathy: "She gets _bored_ the second she isn't being challenged, and spontaneously decides she can think up better uses for her time. Much to the detriment of her poor English grade." He gave a rattle of his head and sipped his coffee. "Classic hot-blooded personality."

"She has a temper?" April was uncertain he'd used the correct idiom.

"In an abstract sense," Mr. Hamilton mused, before frowning at her. "There's only so many reasons to throw yourself into fist fights with people twice your size. No, she'll never visibly become angry, but that kind of pugnaciousness usually means someone is working through unvoiced emotions about a lot of complex things. Anastasia isn't given to talking about _feelings_. At least, not her own. But puberty arrived hand-in-hand with this unexplained but sort of _understandable_ urge to _prove_ herself to the world. Lately though," he reached into a pocket and drew out a phone, swiping it open, "she's _mostly_ been behaving herself." He leaned across the table to pass the phone to April, showing off a video. "This is behind my bar," he explained.

The video caught sight of a man casually swiping cash from a woman's purse as he walked by. He got about twenty yards away when a pipsqueak feminine bellow of, "Leeeroooyyyy Jennnkinsss!" blared through the speakers, and a tiny white blur took out the thief at the legs, sent him sprawling to the ground. She rolled to her feet, shouldered back from a wildly flung punch, hit him back, nicked the badly disoriented thief's stolen cash, and bolted off down the alleyway. The thief shouted, "What the fuck!?"

A few seconds later, that same white-costumed child appeared over the head of the woman who'd been robbed, and began throwing money into the air like she was in some kind of rapper's music video, danced around in a circle like she was bogeying in a shower, and by the time the money all got low enough for the victim to notice and start grabbing drifting green bills out of the air, she was gone.

"Yes!" Mikey shouted and clapped loudly, startling April and Raphael both. "Ha, look at that victory dance! She used my moves! She shouted 'Leroy Jenkins!' Ha! Hahahahaha! Dee! Dee did you see-?!"

"That is indisputably our Wildcard," Donatello agreed dryly. ('Our Wildcard?') "So, _this_ is what she tends to get up to when left to her own devices? I'm not surprised. The second she introduced herself under a 'nickname' I speculated she fancied herself a tiny superhero. What a blessing Jersey doesn't grant civilians concealed carried permits."

"I know, right?" Mr. Hamilton huffed, and shook himself. "She's going to shoulder into the wrong gang recruit one day. I can _feel_ it coming. _That child_ ," he pointed to the phone, "is a handful to even keep accurate tabs on, much less _keep safe._ But recently things have changed. The amount of... _that,_ " another gesture to the phone, "has decreased dramatically. She'll come home instead, or go to the skate park. Whatever she it was she deep down needed—whatever she couldn't put into words, that I couldn't help her with—she somehow found _here_. So... if you want to know how I really feel about Anastasia befriending your son, Mrs. O'Neil, I must use the words 'relieved' and 'overjoyed.'"

"Do... do you have other pictures of her?" April asked, thumb still and resisting the urge to swipe through whole albums.

"Sure," he reached out for the phone. "I'm told swapping baby pictures is customary for parents of new friends, but I was pretty sure I'd die of cuteness if I had to behold any three-year-old Sandros, so," he paused at another video and passed it to April, "instead, I'll just show you where he was during the hurricane."

Electronica music blasted hard and loud as two children elbowed and trash-talked one another in front of a game console, and then arrows were flying across the screen and both kids were stepping in concentrated, fleet and synchronized rhythm with each other.

Something about the candid video struck April in the gut. Something about the unfamiliar but normal little A-Frame, with the storm raging outside, and both kids together, smiling, like they were both the same exact species, both normal, both just _kids_ hanging out together through a crazy storm; it all hit her hard. Sandro was the size any of his uncles or father had been when she'd met them. And oh, he looked so happy.

So _confident_.

"Who taught her ta feint?" Raphael abruptly asked. April glanced at him. "Girl baits and shoulder rolls like she been in the ring before. Half the reason her kamae are messed up."

"Ah." Andrew waved a hand a little meekly, implicating himself. "She hasn't. It was for self defense."

"At her age? What from?"

"Walking home alone from the bus stop in the ghetto at eight and nine years old?" Mr. Hamilton postulated. "When I was working odd hours at two or three different jobs?"

Ah. Raphael sympathized.

"But, as for her ability to hit a target board at range and hustle bar patrons out of cash, I have no idea who could have possibly done that, certainly no one _responsible_ would have encouraged her to earn her allowance that way."

Raphael smirked, but let that lead perfectly into the start of an important topic: "D'ya know much about the night they met? Her and Sandro."

That took awhile to solicit an answer. "I know three bodies showed up in an alleyway," Mr. Hamilton said quietly. "But it was Sandro who made her come clean with me. She told me she'd heard gunshots and run _towards_ them instead of away."

"It ain't botherin' you she's got blood on her hands?" Raphael and April were a well-oiled tag team, Sandro was right.

"Of course it bothers me," Mr. Hamilton muttered, shifting his coffee cup about. "But who was her role model, hm? I have no family, no close friends, no one to poll for advice. It's a miracle she's turned out as good as she has."

"So," Raphael leaned forward for the clincher, "what'd ya do _before_ bartendin'?"

Mr Hamilton licked his lower lip. Then he shrugged slightly. "When Anastasia was little I still did private investigation cases and bounty hunting work—repossession claims for debt firms?—for cash. I moved us around a lot, me and her. Too much, actually. Eventually it did occur to me I needed to stop and settle us down so she could plant her roots, but..." Mr. Hamilton sat back. "I was too late. I... _messed up._ She's always been a fast learner, and I accidentally taught her nothing was permanent. Not her classmates, not her school, not her home, not her possessions; no one, nothing, nowhere. She, ah, doesn't usually make friends easily."

"She gonna get bored any day now, and walk away, go off ta somethin' else?"

Mr. Hamilton smiled, sadly but more genuinely, and looked right at Raphael. "Oh, you will have to cut her off with a hot knife if you want her to let go of that boy. Some people are just like that. They only ever try offering out pieces of their heart once, maybe twice in their whole lives, and they never get them back."

He finished his coffee.


	80. Don't Preen

[Author's Note: In which the two most influential adults in a little girl's life just eerily avoid having a single interaction with one another, and somehow no one notices...]

* * *

It had flickered in for a second, once, nothing more than a snap of dim light, but it had left a dark taste behind. He had suspected it might have a unique character to it, and he waited, quietly, _respectfully,_ to see if it would show itself again. To see if it was, perhaps, proud of its appearance and unable to resist showing off for an attentive audience.

"Andrew, you said something about college prep earlier. What are Anastasia's career aspirations?"

"Until recently I think they were hovering somewhere about 'vigilante hobo.' I imagine they've just classed up to 'ninja.'"

April hesitated. "Is that something you're alright with?"

 _Flicker._

"I'd rather she went into demolitions or material science, but ultimately that's not mine to choose."

"Have you tried encouraging her towards anything else?" Donatello asked, more curious than barbed.

 _The sense of a knowing grin where none existed._

"I spent too many of my own years distracted by the thrills of a thankless and at times dangerous profession," Mr. Hamilton replied. "I know what's it's like, and I try not to be a hypocrite. It doesn't mean I'll let her neglect her education. If she gets halfway down this road and wants to turn around, she'll have some options. Some options that don't include, 'mercenary, stunt woman, and-or petty thief.'"

"That's... understandable."

"May I inquire on Sandro's career goals?"

"Ninja," Raphael answered. "But dere's more den reason fah dat."

"I understand."

"Do you approve of her martial arts lessons?" April asked slowly. "Studying it's going to push her down that road..."

 _The sense of a slow bemused gaze where none existed._

"Well, ordinarily I'd have been very leery about anyone trying to 'recruit' Anastasia to an underground profession."

The television, muted in the background, had subtitles under it: 'A body was found Sunday morning, In what appeared to be another outbreak of gang violence. Investigators say he was wearing symbols affiliated with one of Jersey's most notorious criminal organizations.'

"But somewhere between sharing recipes for quiche, and helping to doll this one up," he tilted his head towards Michelangelo, "in a _fabulous_ orange dress, I'm afraid my guard has been lowered. It would seem she's somehow bumped into a decent family, where the children can quote Shakespeare and everyone loves my cookies. I approve. I can't help but approve. Like I said."

The aura peeked out like it had been sleeping curled up in an alcove in some space beyond. It unfolded itself slowly, generously, older than the man it shrouded. Spectral black soot bathed the kitchen, crackling in tongues of lime flame, like the featherless wings o some swan-like Lovecraftian deity, languidly sprawled atop a throne of souls, long legs kicked up over the armrest.

It smiled lazily from where its head was propped upon its hand.

It couldn't help but be proud.

"Honestly, it's been a pleasure to meet you," April admitted with a real laugh. " _You_ helped with that prank?"

"Walked in on my little trouble maker dolling him up in peach and needed a piece of that pie," Mr. Hamilton agreed with a raise of both brows. "Does he not make a stunning blonde?"

The aura vanished. Leonardo inclined his head slightly, in surreptitious acknowledgement. He did not insult, approach, nor draw attention to it.

From the look of the situation, and from the way Michelangelo squealed and _hugged_ 'Andrew Hamilton,' the only thing terrifying Raphael at this moment was the vague possibility that two people in the room might turn out to be bisexual, and that he should at long last be forced to chill out about and accept such things.

* * *

Sandro knelt before the ihai in the alcove behind the sakura, fresh incense sticks in hand. Since a lighter was involved, Wildcard naturally had to be the one to operate it, but it felt kinda appropriate that she was the one lighting the incense. Made it... 'participatory' or something like that, for her. He placed the incense upright before the altar and then sat back in seiza and clasped his hands to pray silently. The kinds of things he and Wild really needed were things they probably didn't want to risk talking about out loud.

Wildcard placed the lighter back where it belonged and knelt beside him with her hands curled in her lap, lowering her head in respectful deference to the aura of someone else's religion.

 _Grandfather, I know what kind of person's in our house right now. That if you can sense him, you know he's done unforgivable things. But he can do some thing's right, he's been other things than evil, he's been a dad to my sister. I can't help thinking it's supposed to be this way. That, maybe, we're all each other's missing parts, parts of a bigger family. I don't know if that sounds selfish of me because I just don't want to lose her, though. Please help us. Please._

It was probably best Sandro kept things short. If they got caught here there was a chance somebody would read into things, and wonder why the heck Wild hadn't gotten particularly 'anxious' about meeting his parents but had started fighting through some kind of viciously terrified episode mandating divine intervention the second her dad had become involved.

"What are _you_ praying for?" Wildcard suddenly exclaimed in an accusatory fashion, and Sandro jumped and looked over to see Leonardo had not only found them but knelt down as well and joined them in prayer.

"I do not know," Uncle Leo said over the press of his hands. "But it looks serious."

Wild leaned back from him for a moment and then raised her chin haughtily, jabbed his arm with a finger, and said, "Joke's on you, we're praying you don't get a stick up your ass an stop talking to me because you're trying to give me back to my rightful family or something."

"Language," Leo admonished, with a frown that even Sandro would have said very nearly— _very nearly_ —resembled a pout. "This is what brings you to the altar of our ancestors? The staying power of your Ninjitsu lessons? Have I done or said anything since naming you my student which would suggest I consider the arrangement reversible? Explain to me how I have provoked such insecurity, and I shall remedy the manner."

"Well geeze," she delivered in dry monotone, "sorry I get scared and need reassurances and repetition and stuff, gosh, it's almost like I'm a child who doesn't know how the world works yet, so immature, s-m-h, how could this be."

Leonardo was quiet a blink. "There is no need for sarcasm."

"If you are suddenly sensitive to sarcasm," she sassed and threw up an arm, "it must be Donnie's fault, because everyone else in the world agrees sarcasm is as exquisite and delectable as finely aged wine. Do you need me to have a talk with that turtle about how you require calm discourse and the magic of hugs when he's attempting to convey social concepts, has he yelled at you for unfathomable reasons again lately?"

Uncle Leo blinked at his student several long, slow blinks, like he hadn't heard anything and was still waiting for her to respond. Uncle Leo, Sandro was starting to conclude, appeared invulnerable to Wildcard's conversational diversions.

Silence stretched between the three of them for a few seconds. Wildcard slowly deflated. Then she reached over, grabbed hold of the fabric of Uncle Leo's kimono sleeves in both hands, and leaned close. "I have too many emotions," she whispered up to him loudly, eyes widening. "Can I attack you with a practice staff for one or five or a billion minutes until I get exhausted and can't breathe and you knock out my feet from under me and say it's time for a water break?"

Brows furrowed at her, but somehow Uncle Leo did not miss a _beat_ : "That sounds terribly straightforward," he intoned with a thoughtful squint. "Are you sure?"

She nodded her head like a sad puppy, and he gestured back out towards the dojo and the weapons wall as if to say, 'well then, by all means,' and she darted to her feet to go and get those practice staves. Leonardo stood more gracefully, bowed to the shrine, and then turned and followed.

Startled by how nonchalant at this reaction had been, Sandro twisted about to stare after his uncle. Sandro had expected some kind of reaction to Mr. Hamilton's presence, and so had Wild, and they'd both come to that deduction independently which probably meant that Leo _ought_ to have been a little sluggish or shaken up or _something_. By all appearances, Leo had instead just quietly excused himself from the adults' conversation and come to the dojo because Ninjitsu Was Life. Except he'd grown just a little wry—just a bit _playful?_ —the instant Wild had stopped feinting and asked to wail on him with a stick.

With a little shake of his head, Sandro stood and bowed one last time to the shrine, and then hurried out to resume his warm up stretches.

"Did you light fresh incense for Master Splinter?" Leonardo asked him.

"Oh, um, yeah."

"Lilly of the Valley," Uncle Leo approved.

Then Tiny Miniature Chaos was tossing a stave to Leo—very courteous of her, she hadn't specifically stipulated she'd be giving him anything to block with—and charging at him with all the helpless (but very respectable looking) fury of a toy freight train. Leo kept one step ahead of her, deftly blocking and diverting blows with one-handed flicks of the stave. He danced just a bit ahead of her, maybe just because he could, or maybe to help keep her on the warpath.

Sandro stole little glances at them as he warmed up for practice.

 _Grandfather? I think Uncle Leo has a project._

Sandro smirked and looked innocently away.

* * *

The little girl panting hard at the side of the dojo and guzzling from the water bottle he put into her hands looked like she felt much better.

Good. This should not have been the moment at which the children's anxiety was highest.

For now, Kinpōge's violent terror risked giving away the real reason she and her father had 'moved around' all her life. If she could not curb it, she'd give them both away. Had any other member of the family even been watching her earlier, they would have at least wondered at the homicidal way she'd been staring at Raphael's pulse.

Isolated. Paranoid. Fiercely loyal; fiercely protective; fiercely independent. Athletically fit from head to toe. Lethal at an early age.

This 'family' of hers had been on the run from something, and it would only take a glimpse of that idea for April to start interpriting _from whom_ and _why_.

Leonardo did not ask. The day had revealed a few things, some expected, others good. What the children knew and declined to share at least proved that Sandro had been told the naked truth. That was a start. That was more allegiance to their friendship than Leo could have hoped for, for it put the only other person in her life in potential jeopardy. A fair start: A willingness and a bravery—or at least a desperation—to reach out from under this shadow and grab hold of anchors, even if it put the foundation pillar of her upbringing at risk.

'Mr. Hamilton' could take care of himself. He'd had thoroughly demonstrated he'd emerge from the day's meeting unsuspected, unscathed, and without resorting to violence. He was ingratiating himself, yes, but the motive looked born of friendly if psychopathic curiousity and, for now, was yet benign.

Most of the time spent practicing ninjitsu was time spent quietly.

* * *

"Ikutsu? Itte kudasai," solicited the instructor.

"Nanatsu," answered the student.

"'Nana-hatsu,'" corrected the teacher. "Nanahatsu kōgeki."

"Nana-hatsu kō-geki," fumbled the student. "Ichi-hatsu, ni-hatsu...?"

"Seikai. Hm. Junbi?"

"Hai," answered the boy, and, "Hai sensei!" the girl.

A pause to breathe in. "Hajime!"

To be entirely honest, Mr. Hamilton was _extremely_ impressed to hear his daughter speaking Japanese.

She hadn't tried to show off to him with her new knowledge, likely because she'd only been studying a short while and her mastery of it was nonexistent. Wildcard liked to excel. It was too early for her to have developed an ear for the language, and her instructor was talking to her in one and two-word sentences which she was stumbling over with all the grace of a toddler. Despite all of that, she was listening to someone speak _in Japanese_ and answering them back _in Japanese,_ and that was just, well, crazy awesome.

Mr. Hamilton gave Donatello an impressed glance as they all peered in to sneak a look at their progeny mid-practice session. The two kids were paired up for a sequenced exercise, with Sandro on the blocking end and Wildcard on the attack. Despite being more than a head shorter than him, she never did anything particularly _softly,_ and it was clear Sandro was engaged in learning his staggered retreat from her. They did _not_ look like two kids dancing through a choreographed routine. By the second repetition, they distinctly looked like people engaged in some kind of fight. Those aggressive heel stomps Wild was aiming at his shin guards had her weight behind them.

"That is _neat_ ," Mr. Hamilton admitted at a curious whisper.

"Yame."

Sandro stopped. Wild didn't, pivoting around for what _probably_ would have been a kick, had her instructor not pounced on her like lightening and nearly dragged her clear off her feet.

" _No_." She got a very light rap of the knuckles upon the head, and winced. "The next time I say to _stop_ and you try to pull something, Kinpōge-kun, you are ending up in time out with no food after practice. Clear?"

She stuck her tongue out at the older turtle, but then droned a dutiful, "Yes Sensei."

"Instances of proof child was born in a barn skyrocket daily."

"Moooo!" she agreed, and her father nearly died laughing.

"Hey squirt!" Mr. Hamilton called to get her attention. There was probably a bit of protocol for stopping martial arts lessons, but he wasn't Japanese and didn't care and doubted anyone was going to hold it against him. "Don't mean to interrupt but I'm heading out!"

Wildcard twisted to look at him, and smiled a little bit, like she was stunned to see him there all in one piece, and to realize how much time had passed. Her instructor folded aside. "Okay!" she grinned. "Do you need me to walk you safely home, there are hooligans out there!"

"No, I think one of your friend's uncles is going to handle that for you. While trying to wheedle cookie recipes out me."

"Don't give them to him!" she bellowed. "It's your secret weapon, he'll be beholden onto you forever!"

Mr. Hamilton thought about this. "Who taught you the word 'beholden'?" he demanded, and Donatello snickered and shared glances with April.

Wild pointed accusingly at Sandro, who waved shyly and said,

"H-hi, Mr. Hamilton!"

"I might have known. Take care of my trouble maker while she's out of my sight, would you, Sandro?"

Sandro saluted and then looked away with adorably bashful body language. Wildcard waved goodbye and then then turned to Sandro and began to grin at him like a tease was waiting on the tip of her tongue.

Mr. Hamilton smirked and turned back to April. Raphael lingered to say something to Leonardo, but April and the other turtles walked him back to the door. He glanced over his shoulder as they went. Batturtle, who had declined to even look his direction since Mr. Hamilton had first entered the door, now stared after his back with a dead expression, mouth tight, blue-gray eyes hard as sharpened steel. Joker winked.

 _Judgmental_ _stare predictably intensifies,_ read the music score.

"I'm sorry," Joker whispered to April as he turned his attention back to the hallway in front of him. "Sandro probably wants to be treated like a growing young man, but he's so _adorable_."

"I believe you mentioned baby picture sharing?" April whispered back conspiratorially.

"Oh my. I'll have to get emotionally ready for that," Mr. Hamilton cleared his throat. "They're growing up so fast. I'd love a chance to have the kids over, or yourselves, but I understand if safety is too big an issue though. Ninjas and whatnot."

"I've some things in mind to ask you about later on." She smiled. "Maybe we can help each other."

"I'd like that." Joker practiced his Calm Normal Person smile back. It was a very good one, if he did say so himself, and he prided himself on excellent masks and makeup jobs.

Hehe.

* * *

[Author's Note] Joker if you know he's on to you, why would you do that? Smh.


	81. Acceptably Unacceptable

"That was enlightening," April commented to Donatello and Raphael after they'd waved goodbye to Mr. Hamilton and, temporarily, to Mikey, who was walking him to his workplace.

"'Debt firm repossession' mah ass," Raphael muttered with grudging interest. "He meant _bounty huntin'_ , full stop. Maybe more, maybe worse."

April agreed; Mr. Hamilton had only put up the thinnest of veils on that count, and most likely expected it to be seen through. "We knew heading in to this meeting that we might be dealing with someone who'd worked in the underground," she reflected. "I can understand why he didn't want to be open about it. He's got a vulnerable and delinquent daughter he's trying not to undermine with her new friend's family."

Raphael titled his head in acknowledgement of that point. "Wasn't a bad first impression of 'im. Seein' as most people scream like little girls on seein us fah the first time, and everybody else's inclined ta look down like we're animals."

Donatello was grinning up a storm to himself, licking his beak ridge and flicking through blue displays of data via his his gauntlet.

April nudged him. "What?" she asked.

"Ah. He went that entire conversation," Donnie said with a lift of his chin and a big smile, "two solid hours, without _once_ saying the words 'turtle,' 'mutant,' 'sewer,' or even variants, like 'alien.' Picked questions so no one else would talk about them either."

April leaned back on her heels, thinking. "Oh my God," she realized. "He _did_."

"I started timing how long it'd take," Donatello explained, deactivating the gauntlet. "Usually it's the first thing out of anyone's mouth, right? And then they ask not-so-subtly about it over and over again? At bare minimum they stare and flounder awkwardly over vocabulary items like 'people' and 'man.' Well this _very quickly_ passed our family record for time elapsed with zero mentions.

"Then I realized he _had_ to be intentionally avoiding it, there was no possible other explanation; particularly given how his daughter stares. He had a perfect opportunity to say, for instance, that the sight of baby turtles would have been adorable, and instead he said 'baby Sandros.' Not only was he cleverly side-stepping saying the word 'turtle,' he never asked a question that would result in us saying 'turtle.' I'm just floored."

"Coulda been coincidence," Raphael muttered, but then seemed to doubt the likelihood of that.

Donatello leveled a bemused look at him. "Come on. His daughter comes off as an air head sometimes, but her oddball preoccupation with queer little verbal games like this is clearly _inherited._ "

"Well as much as I know you all love being turtles," April shook her head, amused, "I think we can shelve treating you as people as 'respectful.'"

"Boy did it _feel_ respectful," Donatello laughed. "And just a little bit _coy,_ like he wanted to see if he could succeed."

"So where we at with this guy?" Raphael asked April.

"Not sure yet. Let's keep tabs on him, see what he does now that he's met us, and see if we can't dig up any other intel. If not, maybe we can arrange some kind of meet up. I _still_ want to talk to both of you to get the story on how exactly this little girl ended up visiting our house for weeks with us none the wiser," April shot Donatello a bemused glance to soften the accusation in her words.

"I like the little snot," Raphael shouldered gently into her. "She gives him somethin' ta _do_. If ya's still hung up on her bein a bad influence, Ah'ma counter ya and say he's old enough and responsible enough to stand his ground."

"I've written down my initial thoughts about what Sandro said to me Friday night," April looked up to both of them. "Can we go over a few of them today, maybe later?"

Donnie nodded.

"What about the girl?" Raphael prompted. "Ya wanna talk ta her directly now that there ain't no distraction?

"Yes," she nodded. "There are going to need to be some rules while she's coming over here, particularly with regards to photos and secrets. We'll need to discuss appropriate hours next week, I want some structure to their days."

"We still at da compromise of five hours a day, at least fah dis week?" Raphael asked, and April an Donatello both nodded. "A'right, I'll remind em. Gonna go duck into da dojo."

"I'll make them a plate of fruit and vegetable slices to attract them both into the kitchen after they're done," Donatello told April and then went off to do so.

* * *

"Sandro," Raphael joined them in the dojo some time after Mr. Hamilton had left for work. He'd likely been speaking with April and Donatello about the meeting.

Sandro hurried over to his father's overhand beckon. "Sensei?" he asked, and Leo wagered he was trying to ensure, without asking, that Raphael didn't feel slighted he'd been practicing without him that morning. Two hours of study in the dojo were already nearly fully elapsed.

But Raphael was fine. "Ah'm guessing ya be wantin' ta move ya lessons ta earlier in the day ta line up with ya friend's?" he asked. "Specially on accounta da hour limit."

Sandro perked up eagerly. The more they spoke like this, the more it settled that she'd be with them for the foreseeable future, and the more time Raphael and April had to grow used to the idea. "Yes! Uh, I mean... Can we? Please?"

"Yeah, a'right, a'right," Raphael took in a big breath and huffed. "Guess dat means I'm ta be gettin' up with Mistah Early Riser again for da first time in a decade."

"It's a healthy lifestyle," Leo commented innocently.

"Says who? Yo, ya ain't exactly gettin' up with the _sun,_ Fearless."

"I shall appreciate the company, regardless," Leonardo replied, and that made his own pupil grin.

"Ah'm sure ya will," Raphael groused, but then looked to Kinpōge. "Yo, Mouse, wife and I want ta talk ta ya aftah practice. Cool?"

She perked up. "Sure! Can I have someone for emotional support so I don't start blathering like a maniac?"

"Eh, sounds like that might best," Raphael decided with what was almost a grin.

Kinpōge might as well have been glowing. She felt welcome again, it seemed, and that mattered tremendously to her.

A peculiar scent drifted to him, musty. What was...?

"Sensei!" his student demanded, most likely wanting to show off her improvement now that she had a critical 'audience.' Leo shook his head slightly and nodded apologetically to her.

Practice resumed for about a period of twenty minutes, and concluded with Donatello calling, "Kids!" down the hallway. "Snacks!" Both children were pushovers at any mention of food, and quickly bowed and scrambled for the hall, presumably with the intention of stripping free of practice gear after restocking on calories.

"Kinpōgekun," Leonardo called her back, leaning over besides where they kept the water bottles.

She blinked at him from where she'd been about to follow Sandro and hurried back over.

Leonardo placed a water in her hand but then paused, because he could smell it again: _Musk._ Very faint, but definitely there, and perhaps mammalian. Perplexed, Leo squatted down over his startled student, and inhaled deeply. She blinked unknowingly at him. Leo frowned. Relatively old memories resurfaced, and he tilted his head and tried to think back. The answer hit him and he stiffened.

"Do not join your brother just yet," he suggested slowly, tactfully. "Go... go to the _bathroom_ first."

* * *

Ah, there she was. She'd probably been using the restroom.

"Hello, Anastasia, we just-?"

But April trailed off because the girl had a desperate frown etched on to her face and wasn't paying anyone any attention. She skittered straight for where Sandro was making short work of celery sticks and apple slices at the table, and she grabbed hold of his arm. He blinked and leaned over so she could whisper something clandestinely to him.

The grin which lit up his face dissolved into snickers as he pulled back and inch to see her. "I should just let you suffer," he teased with smug and barely repressed laughter. "S'your fault for not remembering."

She gave him enormous puppy eyes, clasped her hands together pleadingly, and wormed anxiously in place. 'Please help me!' was written all over her.

Now definitely laughing, Sandro popped another apple slice into his mouth and then turned around and reached to the counter top and April's purse.

"I _thought_ I smelled something wrong with you." His lack of shyness about reaching into said purse surprised April, but what definitely surprised her more was when he pulled out the spare tampon and passed it to Anastasia. "Here," he snickered. "Good luck in there!"

She huffed in relief, stood on her toes—to kiss his cheek!—and then bolted wordlessly back off into the bathroom.

April double checked that something peculiar had just happened by looking over at Raphael. Check. Raphael looked positively baffled, like he wanted to be vicariously embarrassed that feminine hygiene products had dared entered into the realm of things Sandro had been forced to even know about and acknowledge the existence of, much less actually handle. Seeing how Sandro was clearly nonplussed, Raphael didn't know what to do.

"What was dat?" Big Red actually asked, attracting Donatello's attention that something peculiar had just occurred.

Sandro was all grins as he put the purse back. "She just started last month," he explained languidly, like this was nothing but funny. "It had happened mid Aikido practice, and her teacher had noticed and pulled her aside to explain what had happened, and then she had to figure it all out with a toiletries dispenser and Wikihow articles in a public bathroom."

"Did she just-? Oh of course," Donatello muttered testily. "Of _course._ Probably didn't even mark it on a calendar, wiped it from her mind the second it was done. Didn't even have the decency to be properly traumatized by the incident. I'll put some herbal tea on the stove."

Sandro snickered into his apple slices. "Her clothing's all white, she's lucky it waited till she got to the bathroom this time."

"I don't imagine she even thinks about that. Not the most prudent of planners. I'll put them on the grocery list," Donatello sighed, "we'll stash a box in the bathroom when she inevitably mismanages it again."

"I'll try warning her," Sandro grinned as he pulled out his phone to apparently make himself a reminder. "She might actually be embarrassed enough this time. It's twenty-eight days, right?" Donnie hummed in agreement.

Raphael tilted his head.

Sandro nearly choked as he noticed his father's expression. "I googled it," he snickered bashfully, "after she turned up in our atrium high on three cans of red bull, all proud, like 'Sandro guess what I did!'"

"If I could retroactively put Leo in the room to hear her info dump..." Donatello grinned to himself just imagining it.

"Consider me _thoroughly_ desensitized," Sandro agreed.

April cleared her throat and patted her husband to sooth him lest he get any more weirded out. "Well," she said. "I for one am impressed by our son's maturity."

"Right," a flummoxed Raphael decided was the correct answer. When in doubt, agree with wife.

"Sometimes she forgets she's a girl," Sandro suggested as he pocketed his phone, "I've volunteered myself on older sister duty for emergencies. It's like being a volunteer fireman." He winked. "No room for panic; have to think fast; fires to put out!"

And right there April realized this new cocky sassiness of his, while still disorienting each time it showed up, was absolutely going to grow on her. Especially if it kept his poor father looking so wide-eyed and naive. She started laughing, and her boy beamed at her, and she smiled back to let him know he was perfect.

* * *

Anastasia returned to them a few minutes later, looking much relieved. "I went swimming in a cloud of deodorant!" she told Sandro excitably. "Do I smell like death any more?!"

Sandro affected to cough slightly and waved his hand in front of his face. "No, you're good. You smell like centaur dude again. Or maybe like someone was spraying art with a fixative."

"Thank _goodness,"_ she heaved a dramatic sigh and looked ready to put the entire issue behind her, except then Donnie tapped her shoulder and fed a cup of herbal tea into her hands. Her face went red to indicate she was actually embarrassed for the first time since meeting them. After a moment she hung her head in defeat. "I've lost three badassery points this day."

"Oh at least four," Sandro disagreed with a solemn furrow of his brow to her humiliated pout. "C'mere, crazy," he steered her over started putting fruit and veggies on a plate for her, "drink that and intake calories before you end up passed out on the couch all afternoon."

April started laughing again. She attracted the girl's wide-eyed glance, and so smiled back at her. "Hi, Anastasia," she said. "Would you talk with us for a bit?"

"Oh!" her face lit up in comprehension. She climbed into a chair, and April observed that she knelt on it because it dwarfed her. "Yes! Okay, I practiced this, I'm not supposed to go off on a tangent. What did you want to ask me?"

"Tell us a bit about yourself," April suggested.

"I..." A very large number of things had clearly occurred to Anastasia simultaneously, but she managed not to burst at the seams in an attempt to say everthing. She took a slow breath and put her hands together. "Um, well, I live in the borough of Greenville. Is it called a borough? Dad managed to get us this cute little A-frame, and my bedroom's the only room at the top, but we've already had two break-ins through the kitchen table, cause we dared to repaint it and make it look nice, heavens forbid we be proud or anything. But it was okay, the first guy lived nearby and we took him down the street to turn him in to his mom and she beat him up with a rolled up newspaper, that was hilarious."

Well! This wasn't terrible, Anastasia was still going off on little tangents, but not exactly getting lost, and she was being informative. She paused here to look at Sandro. He tilted his head slightly to indicate she should keep talking.

"And, um, I'm fourteen years old, and four-foot-eleven, and despite a maintaining a fairly consistent three and a half thousand calorie diet, and I am still shy of a hundred and twenty pounds. I'm working on it. I think some Irish genetics are sabotaging me or something, except they're supposed to be reasonably tall and I'm not, but I love fettuccine Alfredo way, way, way too much to be this small, so clearly I got a fantastic post-industrial age metabolism one way or another. And pizza, I like pizza. And calzones. And stuffed mushrooms, baked potatoes, New York styled—you know what, I'm just going to say 'cheese' and leave it at that: 'I like cheese.'"

"Might be ya problem," Raphael abruptly interrupted from where he now affected to be casually listening in. "Too much fat in ya diet. Need more starch and protein if ya tryin ta put on muscle volume."

"Simple fats are fine," Donatello half-corrected with a few shooing waves Raphael's way as if chastising him for infringing on his turf. "Michelangelo and I are already on it, she needs more fish and to switch out white flour with something made from legumes to improve calorie density and nutrient complexity."

"And to keep properly hydrated," Leonardo added from down the hallway and two additional Ninja Turtles scoffed in agreement as if that part were obvious.

The girl shared a startled look with Sandro, and looked as surprised as April was to find out that Donatello and Michelangelo were already planning her diet specifically for muscle weight gain. "Okay, I could ignore my dad, my sensei, and maybe even Donatello, depending on whether he pouted or not," she admitted. "But if your dad says so, well then it must be true."

"Really?" Sandro blinked.

"Who's going to argue with thirty inch biceps?" Ana demanded with a gesture of both hands.

"Thirty-four," Raphael corrected as if mildly offended. (Of course he would be).

" _Exactly!_ " Anastasia agreed firmly. Then she teared up visible and began to warble in theatrical apostrophe: "Goodbye copious over-orderings of Americanized Italian food covered in Parmesan, goodbye doughnuts, goodbye poutine...!"

"There there," Sandro leaned forward with a shuttering of his eyes and patted her back. "I'm sure you can still have at least half of that stuff."

Little Sister gave a big sniff and wiped her face. "Thank you for your emotional support in these difficult times."

"No prob, sis, doughnuts are a very sensible thing to get hangry over. You should probably pause and wait to get asked another question, though, you're off topic."

"Well maybe I wanna be," she mumbled.

Comprehension flashed, and April realized who exactly had sent Sandro that box of crocodile-shaped confectioneries immediately after he'd been abused by Raphael. It was a somewhat eerie sensation, to realize this little girl had been a tremendous source of comfort for him and that they'd known nothing about her. It put her statement that she'd had a lot of 'pent up aggression' on Monday in perspective; she'd _been present_ in the house, and she'd been watching her friend hobble around on a crutch. _'If you ever hurt him again,'_ the girl had said, only April had been a little horrified at the time, _'I'll hurt you.'_ No one had felt more helpless to reassure Sandro that weekend than the girl who hadn't been able to reach him.

Between that and missing his birthday only one week before, it was clear this child had not all benefited from being kept a secret. She might have been pushing Sandro to speak with them, to tell them the truth. Hmm. Hadn't Leo said something about a present?

"If only I'd been a boy, I could rely on testosterone to do this for me," Anastasia was grousing.

"I think Leo mentioned you also had a birthday recently?" April asked, sitting forward to reclaim the conversation.

"September twenty second," she said, all melancholy gone instantaneously as she riveted on the new topic. "Isn't that _weird_? We're _twins._ "

It was. April glanced to her family in surprise. "Oh, I see. Ana, did Sandro tell you about his birthday party?"

"About the farmhouse?" Anastasia deduced. "Yeah, but I was advised all farmhouse related discussions were top secret and I shouldn't mention them to anybody or in any other company but the Hamato family. Donnie showed me a few videos and I got to see the awesome alligator children, but I think he left a lot of footage on the cutting room floor, based on the scene jumps, to edit out any human family members or friends I haven't met yet, just for everybody's peace of mind. Also I haven't stolen anyone's phone recently and/or gone through any pictures they didn't mean to show me, not even Mikey's."

Alright then, at least the family had been covering all its bases. Their prudence mandated April take a moment to think about the situation.

If she continued to visit them like this, Anastasia _would_ be let in on some of those secrets. Maybe for right now the best plan was 'steady as she goes' and 'we'll see from there.' The two kids clearly had a dynamic together, and while Anastasia didn't come off as extremely naturally responsible, she also seemed to care a lot about this friendship. Enough to protect it. There was also the factor where she seemed to have few friends or acquaintances, making her father's reliability almost ten times as important as her own.

They'd have to arrange a few more meetings with that man, and slowly pass out information to him to test his trustworthiness. That prospect was almost exciting; if nothing went wrong, the Turtle Family might actually have... a new friend, after all this time.

Donatello came over to sit on the far side of the table, to join in on the conversation. "I've been meaning to ask whether you take any photographs of your own?" he prompted.

"Of Sandro?" Anastasia asked. "Yeah, but they're encrypted." She drew out her phone, swiped rapidly, and then passed it across the table.

Donnie had likely tried to mine Sandro's phone for intel on the girl after discovering he'd been going topside. "You use the same system as Sandro's?" he asked.

"Yes! He's the one who set it up for us, cause we wanted some pictures of eachother. I don't organize anything ever, so he set it up so it would automatically make a new album per month, and then the app forces me to make up different passwords I've never used before. He _knows me._ "

"I know you," Sandro agreed.

"This is defensible. Did you take any before this?" Donatello asked, swiping through a few of the pictures and noting the application details.

Anastasia shook her head. "No I didn't want to be a creeper or anything. And by the time we'd hung out for a week, we both wanted pictures. It's _creepy_ not having photographs of someone, it's like they could just—poof!—vanish one day and you'd never know if you'd imagined them."

From where she was sitting, April could see a photograph that had clearly been taken in daylight, and she reached out to turn the phone to her. Her eyes hadn't been playing tricks on her. This was of Sandro, out in daytime, sheltered by what appeared to be a parasol and reading a school book. By the green lawn, picnic blankets, his reclined posture, and the girl's leg he was using as a headrest, they must have been at the park.

"I love that picture," Anastasia suddenly gushed, chin on her hands as she smiled brightly across the table at that photograph. "That's actually the day Mikey and Donatello jumped him on his way back from hanging out with me. See that orange? That's the edge of my skateboard. We found it in a dumpster and replaced a wheel a few days before, and he'd just replaced the grip tape for me. San's phone was confiscated so he just didn't turn up the next day, and I freaked out. I think I fell asleep hugging that skateboard, we were sooooo nervous about whether we'd see each other again. Hey, hey Sandro—"

She looked over at Sandro and opened her mouth, but Sandro seemed to think she was going to say something bizarre because he fixed her with a look that said 'hold it right there missy, take it down a notch.'

She jumped and then slapped both hands over her face and took in a deep breath and let it out in a long stream. "Okay! I practiced this. I'm calm!" She looked back to April. "What else?"

April reasoned she'd discuss Sandro's daytime excursions with Sandro and Donnie, and not as some kind of public lecture. "Donnie says your favorite subject is mathematics?" she prompted.

"That and chemistry," Wild agreed. "I like puzzles. Don't tell Donnie, but I'm secretly waiting to see if the day ever comes where I'm allowed to see the lab. I only want to look! I've been _super good_ about not trying to sneak in. Also there's apparently a motorcycle occasionally in residence in this house, who is absolutely beautiful and I want to meet her, but I haven't gone snooping past any door that's been shut. Honest!" She got a green eyebrow raise. "I don't even know where anyone but Sandro sleeps, and that's only because I helped him feed his pets and met his crocodile which was a fair trade because he helped me clean my sugar glider's cage." She crossed her heart. "Actually, you know, I don't even know where the laundry room is... You do have a laundry room right?" She looked at Sandro.

"Off topic," he responded.

"Eep!" She clasped her hands together and affected angelic innocence.

"What do you do for fun?" Raphael asked. Slyly.

"When I'm not here? Parkour, exercise, I just picked up skateboarding, I play some video games," she listed. "I like the rock wall and gymnastics. Mikey's teaching us how to dance. Sandro and I are playing a farming game and arguing about how many cows we need."

"Ya dad mentioned ya inclined ta get in trouble."

"Oh _did_ he?" Ana narrowed her eyes. "Well _pbbbthb_ to him, he made me _promise_ not to get into trouble, so he is exaggerating! I _have_ been up to a bunch of mischief, but that's like trouble's gentler and more amusing second cousin. Like when I threw that snail down the back of that mean girl's shirt, or dropped a bucket of jello on that frat boy who slapped his girlfriend. I mean there was one incident where I climbed a skyscraper, but Sandro went volcanic on me afterward and made me promise not to be dumb. But, in my defense it made perfect sense at the time. Heck, I even got a sample of Iron Man's infamous gold alloy plating, which I gave to Donatello because I figured _someone_ in the house had to be responsible for fabricating Knightwatcher's armor."

Two adult turtles and a reporter straightened and blinked rapidly at her, thrown for a loop.

"I was there for the jello thing," Sandro vouched, apparently unable to help himself from supporting his friend's absolutely bizarre conversational bearings; which, to be fair, were maddeningly compelling and always seemed to come from from nowhere. "Did not participate; was the lookout. She wanted to steal an ice cream truck. Advised her that doing so would be illegal and she'd have to make her getaway via more conventional means."

Donatello looked to April, looking slightly spooked. "The story about the skyscraper is true."

"You've met _Tony_?" Raphael disbelieved before grimacing, half disgusted and half impressed. "That smug diva ain't remotely in da same circles as us. Fundamental difference in opinion on whether supah heroes' and mutants' identities should be public knowledge."

"Oh, look, I don't know anything about that," Anastasia waved her hands. "All we talked about was our poor life choices and how screwed up our circadian rhythms are and that he should probably stop drinking because the definition of an alcoholic is a person who tries to drink socially and fails spectacularly every time."

"You just randomly cared about the integrity of my dad's armor?" Sandro asked on reflection.

"He's your _dad_ ," she said, with a confused expression. "What am I _supposed_ to care about?" That hung in the air a second. "Hey! How am I doing, am I on topic this time?"

"Eh." Donatello gave a so-so waggle of his hand, still appearing slightly spooked. "Good enough. You're at least being informative."

"Yes!" she fist-pumped. "I'm learning!" She looked to Sandro with a manic smile. "Donnie-Senpai approved slightly! Almost! Kinda! I'm treasuring this moment forever. Angels singing!"

"Aaaannd there she goes," Sandro noted sadly to the table.

* * *

[Author's Note: I think this is it folks I think Wild's made the team, slid in under a slim margin! She's like the derpy yellow mangy street mutt their son brought home or something XD]


	82. Compare and Contrast

The interrogation was over, and Wildcard seemed to have passed.

Not with flying colors, mind you; probably more by the skin of her teeth, but when April leaned over and smiled at her and Sandro both and told them to have fun over the week and that they'd talk more on Friday, Wild's heart soaaaared and Sandro squeezed her hand under the table. Did this mean things were going to be okay, now? Was it all over? Were they 'in the clear?!' _Yo, old people! Leave the room so we kids can have a mission recap and ascertain our current location! Also, we want to snuggle and your hypothetical judgmental expressions are in the way!_

Leonardo entered their kitchen and reverently obtained a brown paper bag lunch from where Donatello had left it sitting out for him upon the counter. Wildcard threw back the remainder of her herbal tea and twisted about to inspect him. _Wow, is was a new outfit!_ He was wearing a heavy pleated gray poncho that hung like panels of leaves around him. Much more importantly, he was wearing a hat. A straw hat. A conical, straw, Asian farmer's hat. Like a Foot Elite from TMNT.

"Aren't you a semi-aquatic reptile, Sensei?" she wondered aloud, looking him up and down. "You can't be scared of rain, it's illegal."

"I find October chilly," Leonardo replied with all the grace that she'd come to expect of him. Well naturally, Octobers, chilly, duh; Sensei could totally make anything seem totally boring. "But there is a severe storm afoot, and rain gear protects my katana from moisture."

"Ohhhhhh." Some of Joker's only lectures on gear maintenance revolved around rust and tetanus infections. The others had involved not exploding oneself. "I accept that."

"Also, this way I spare my tabi a dousing."

Wildcard Kinpōge shuddered in sympathy. "Wet socks are the worst. They're like the lowest, soggiest form of hell. They squish. It's revolting."

"Dreadful," Sensei confirmed with a cobalt glance at her that held her for a moment. 'Are you alright?' he didn't ask but sort of did.

'Are we telepathically communicating about how I managed not to get blood all over compromising areas of a complete white outfit?' Kinpōgekun's squint asked back, 'Or are you inquiring about my general mental health this evening, in which case you have a straw hat on, my hair is a bird, a cat is pushing a watermelon out of a lake, someone's argument is invalid.'

Leonardo studied her for a moment and then patted her shoulder and stepped past to depart.

Kinpōge fumbled like the chair had just been kicked out from underneath her, and then blurted out a, "B-be safe!" after him for no reason whatsoever, except maybe because straw hats had her thinking about Foot Elites which had her thinking about yesterday night and the black-masked man with the Foot symbol whose throat had been slit wide open in front of her, and, wow, thank Splinter telepathy wasn't really a thing.

Sandro raised a brow at her and she nearly slapped a hand over her face,

but Sensei actually slowed, tilted his head, and then belatedly advised: "Bundle yourself up warmly before heading out for the remainder of the evening, child."

Kinpōge didn't know why, but that did make her smile, even if Raphael had glanced after Leo like he had three heads or was wearing pink from head to toe.

* * *

 _Grr, come on old people! You're lettin' me down! Vamoose! Donnie! Pay attention! I need to hug Sandro!_

Then Mikey came home (does he count as an adult?) and scarcely got a wave in to Mini before April and Donatello snared him to go speak in the Lab privately. Yes! That got most of the adults out of the room. Uh, though, _curiously,_ Raphael lingered and nudged Sandro's shoulder.

"Ya mom and I wanna make it ta a meeting with someone early t'morrow morning," Red said.

Sandro seemed surprised and interested that he was being told anything about his parents' work plans. Then his face fell as he realized this was how Raphael was telling them they'd be leaving _early_ , even despite the momentous events of the weekend. Sandro leaned back an inch, and the expression on his face told Wild his emotions were complex.

"Wait. Listen fah a sec," Raphael scuffed a hand affectionately over the back of his head. "Ya remembah back on Friday when ya mom surprised ya with that whole 'baby' thing?"

"The babies! Sandro!" Wildcard whipped around and grabbed at her brother to ferociously shake him. "You vetoed tiny turtles! I nearly gave myself away from the rafters! Why would you do that!? Who wouldn't want itty bitty teeny weeny tiny turtles!?"

"Yeah shut up fah a second, Mouse," Raphael covered her mouth and addressed Sandro directly. Wild was flattered. "Ya Mom and I actually talked about it a lot, about how ta hide shit and figuah out what our story is. Truth is, uh... sh-she wasn't the first one to think of it. _I_ was, I asked her if we could... have another. Or two or three, apparently. Wasn't ya mom bein' oblivious in that instance, was _me_."

Sandro hesitated, surprised at this reordering of actors and confused about where the line of conversation was going.

"Look, uh... Lotta people been in denial a long time now that this long-distance work thing was shit, is shit, s'always been shit, and it ain't ever gonna end unless we pick a spot ta end it. In the beginnin', we sure as f-fudge needed da money, but it... it grew into somethin' else. Got outta hand. And ya right, ain't responsible ta have more kids I'm basically dumpin' on mah brothers. Last night, ya mom and I got ta talk about that. We ain't gotten' ta the stuff ya told her alone, so I ain't _entirely_ sure where ya at just yet about... everythin else. But here's mah question, cause I need ta know where ta throw my weight and what ta vote for: If one or both of us manages ta get our tails back in this house durin' the week, where's dat leave ya opinion on da matter?"

"Of... of having some younger siblings?" Sandro asked slowly.

Raphael nodded. His face was so amazingly earnest and worried and maybe even _excited_ that Wild stared at him amazement. When Sandro hesitated, she kicked him..

Sandro winced and shifted. "I _want_ one of you to be home," he said noncommittally.

Raphael waited and shifted his weight slightly, excitement faltering. "But?" he asked.

Sandro shook his head. "There's no 'but.' If you come home, and you promise you'll have more than one, I'll—you'll have my blessing. I won't have anything to do with taking care of them, though." He crossed his arms. "Not even slightly. I'm not changing a single diaper, and I'm not babysitting. I'll only play with them because they're my family and I love them, I won't have it be 'expected' of me."

Raphael was silent for a moment, and by the flare of his nostrils he was breathing deep and maybe momentarily feeling emotional. Then he nodded rapidly, and came forward a little to put his arm around Sandro's neck, lower his head, and tilt his forehead to Sandro's. The two stayed like that for a moment, like they were having a Moana moment, and Wildcard found that beautiful and realized that this was something both Mikey and Sandro had done to her and that it sort of meant something to this family, like it was a legit expression of affection.

"Kay," Raphael said, standing up slowly.

"Is that what your meeting Monday morning's about, then?" Wildcard asked, because she'd been ungagged and still remembered where the conversation had started.

"Oh. Yeah," Raphael cleared his throat. "S'basically about that, figurin' shit out. Wanna get an early start on it, and we got a good opportunity, so we'll head out 'bout the same time ya Mouse is. Cool?"

Sandro nodded quickly. "Okay," he agreed, absolving the quick departure. "Thanks for explaining."

"Right." Raphael pet his baby boy's head again, affectionately, and Wild was pretty sure Raphael loved the look of that black bandanna mask on him, loved the way it brought out his face and eyes. Then Red turned and headed after April and Donatello, likely to get the tail end of the story of how all this secret-keeping had gone down.

* * *

"So," Wildcard whispered. "Is he being way sweeter to you lately? Am I getting a biased sampling?"

Sandro swallowed and then bobbed his head and reached out for her hand again. "Y-yeah. Yeah, he is."

"Is, um," she hadn't known Raphael long enough to know his patterns, "is he gonna reverse back to being an a-hole after a few weeks go by?"

Her brother let out a shaky breath. "God, I really hope not," he blurted weakly. "I feel like a _son_."

Wildcard got up, pushed her chair closer to his, sat back down, and tucked herself into his side for a bit. Sandro turned and butted his temple gently into hers, and she could recognize that now as an inclusive, turtle-to-turtle affectionate bond thing. She put an arm around his neck the way his dad had, only with wayyy tinier arms, and she squeezed him to her. "I wuv you bro," she promised. "If he can figure out how to wuve you, I'll send him vulgar, expletive filled poetry about how horrible he is."

Sandro huffed and slipped an arm about her shoulders to return the fraternal embrace. "Hold ya to it."

"Think we're in the clear yet?" she asked him. "On the whole introduction thing?"

The uttering of the question seemed to leave him instantaneously exhausted, and deflated air out of him. Still, he nodded and muttered: "Was a long, winding, crazy, intense set of conversations. But it looks like we made it. From here it still looks like mom might try and control the number of hours you're over long term, to a number that 'makes sense' to her, but I'm guessing if I present her with an essay on exactly how I spend my time each day, Figure A with Wild, Figure B sans Wild, she's going to see the reality of it."

"That there aren't diminishing returns?" Wild asked.

Sandro raised a brow and looked at her.

"Okay clearly in addition to 'Math' and 'Chemistry' we need to add 'Economics' as something I'm better at than you."

"Who at fourteen is studying economics?" Sandro grumbled.

She gave a roll of her eyes. "People who need to be equally good experts in blue and white collar crime, duh."

Sandro wrinkled his nose at her irritably, and then gave a roll of his eyes and looked away.

Wildcard was quiet for a bit. A long bit. "D-does this mean I get to keep you forever?" she finally asked. Her voice cracked. The question stole away all her mojo.

Sandro's pretty copper eyes opened wide in surprise. The look he gave her was almost wounded for a second, like an echo from a universe in which they'd failed and now needed to say goodbye. Then he wordlessly grabbed her into a real hug, and she climbed halfway into his lap.

 _Ah, we meet again, special crook of Sandro's beautiful, long neck_. She burrowed into it. _It has been too long!_ He was always fierce and firm about holding on to her, like a vice, like a person would hold a piece of important machinery in place while glue set or bolts were installed. Like she was part of him. He smelled like Old Spice, river water, ferns, and the scent of earth after it rained, which was what she imagined dinosaurs probably smelled like. Geosmin! That was it, he smelled like geosmin. The good kind, naturally. Not like the inside of a refrigerator.

"I love you, Wild," he grit out ardently into her, his voice guttural. "I love you." She wiggled to get an elbow up on his shoulder, and pressed a hand to his face to cup his cheek and brow, and to run her palm along his pretty scales. She was pretty sure he rocked her a bit.

* * *

Sandro knew, standing at the rear of the atrium and watching as everyone got ready for departure, that his plan was going to fail.

He'd told Wildcard they'd video game all week to handle the 'five hour limit' his mom had given them, but he knew from watching Wild, from feeling the aura hanging on her skin and listening to the kinda crazy energy she and he _both_ had hanging over their heads, everything still felt way too out of control right now for Wildcard to go home, sit herself down in front of a television, and make sense.

She was going to go AWOL. She'd go missing on him. She'd go missing on her dad. Neither of them was going to hear from her until dawn; they just had to hope she wouldn't do anything seriously dangerous.

She almost knew it was gonna happen, too, if the numerous smiles she sent his way were any indication. Wild lied best when smiling, and that included lying to herself. He watched her with a tinge of resentment.

What if something happened to her because she refused to control herself? Didn't she understand his emotions were on the line, too? Why couldn't she just _not do something stupid,_ like everybody else in the world?

This week was gonna be hell.

But... The exercise of thinking about this revealed Sandro couldn't stay angry with her, and as his emotions mellowed out a bit, he thought about why this might be. Perhaps it was because he felt he had a bird's eye view on her: Wild wasn't _doing this to him,_ it was something that happened _to_ her. She couldn't just snap out of her craziness, it kinda seized control of the pilot's chair. She was like one part astonishingly ingenious lateral planner, one part hapless random number generator.

Maybe the reason Sandro couldn't stay angry was because he refused to blame her for some integral part of her brain chemistry. God knew his own wasn't perfect. It kinda produced all the best and worst parts of them; it gave Wild her wacky character.

Didn't mean he wanted her climbing any skyscrapers. Maybe Crazy-Her didn't want that either. Maybe it could learn. Maybe she'd go on a manic pranking spree instead and be relatively safe.

Then it hit him:

 _Is this like a disorder? Something you can 'manage'? Something where you can shave off the worst of the effects using thought exercises or medication? Like depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsion, or...?_

Sandro perked up. Donatello had been right when he'd asked if Sandro would like to read about psychology. It wasn't Sandro's problems Sandro wanted to read about, though!

He waved goodbye to her, and was startled when she didn't notice and seemed deep in thought. Maybe that meant something. It hurt knowing that five-hour limit might literally _kill_ her tonight or any night this week, but he had zero way of arguing that with his mother, because she definitely wasn't ready to let Wild's problems be his problems. Even if they already were.

* * *

Anastasia skipped ahead of them down the sewer, blithely kicking cans and other debris into the channels to get it moving. Mikey tailed her, looking like a very overlarge and playful puppy, and the two of them started playing with a discarded tuna can like it was a bean bag.

"Is this a thing?!" Anastasia demanded of him as they tossed and kicked the can back to one another using the tops of their toes. "Playing 'don't let the ball touch the lava' with just your feet?"

"You don't know what a hacky sack is?" Mikey disbelieved. "Omigod! You need to start watching soccer, Donnie is _the best_ with his feet!"

"That sounds like innuendo!" Anastasia hissed as she caught the tuna can on her foot, and jumped to toss it to the other.

"Noooo!" Mikey cackled. "Not it doesn't! We need to retrain you!"

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it! Retraining is in progress!" Her feet were splashing in puddles, and the channel was filled to the brim, which meant they'd gauged their departure time just right. This storm was going to leave the tunnel flooded within the hour.

"Hey knuckleheads," Raphael said. "Dis is our stop."

"Eep!"

"We'll be heading out through the external garage," April said to Anastasia with a gesture to a maintenance tunnel which had a work elevator several turns down.

"Oh! Okay. It was nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil!" she said with a wave.

"Hamato!" Raphael exclaimed and twisted about. "Mah family name's still 'Hamato!'"

The girl jumped and lost her tuna can. "Wait, aren't you married?"

"Yes!" Raphael exclaimed with chagrin. "She couldn't change 'er last name cause the story topside is she's single!"

"Ohhhhhhh." The wink in this little girl's eye suggested she'd realized this based on Sandro's surname, but had liked teasing Raphael by assigning him his wife's surname for something like an ironic bit of gender equality.

"'Hamato' is an extremely uncommon Japanese surname," April mentioned, seeing as it would probably keep the girl from accidentally speaking it aloud in public. "It would have drawn a lot of questions even if I'd tried to say I was married to someone camera shy, or who who lived abroad."

"Well that makes sense. How does one marry a turtle, by the way? Heck, how does anyone marry anyone, is there paperwork, is it filed somewhere, does the turtle have to have a social security number? Did a church do it, are there churches tolerant of these things? "

"Whoa, Min, story for another day," Mikey laughed, scooping her up around the middle and plopping her on his shell. "C'mon, let's get you topside so I don't miss getting to my spot for the commute!"

"Doh, okayyyy," Wildcard whined but waved back to them as Mikey carried her off. "Bye Sandro's Mom and Dad! I think your romance is coooool!"

* * *

Wildcard perched under the roof overhang on the side of Pat's Pizza Hut. A pie sat behind her and water splattered off the roof onto the ground at her feet.

She hadn't gone home.

She stared into her backpack, and the large assortment of gear within: Her usual favorites, the gecko claws and a grappling hook, some harder explosives, and something new, something she'd nicked from new crates she'd found in their basement, a self-boring mine for blowing open walls.

On the left was the white outfit Dad had finished for her first. On the right was the matching black one he'd just finished the day before. Dad had sourced matching black practice gear for it, too, virtually identical to what Donatello and Mikey had given her for her birthday. She rubbed each garment between her fingers. One of these two outfits had first been shown off in the company of friends; The other had seen death on it's maiden voyage.

Both were rainproof.

* * *

The rain was thick. Like big, cold, heavy blankets; it flopped down on top of people and weighed them down, and some of the roads had puddles up to the curb. It blotted out light. Dressed in black from head to toe, she could barely see her own hands in front of her. That was probably a good sign, given what she was about to attempt.

She slunk forward, staying low on her belly and down on all fours, climbing like a slug from building to building, never giving lightning the chance to show off her silhouette, shying down from even the tiniest hint of car lights. She wasn't heading towards the Holland Tunnel, but she was near it, curving her way exploratively up, flirting with territorial boundaries. How far was too far? How to catch sight of what she wanted without getting caught by what she didn't? She knew some of these roofs. She'd seen them in daytime the weekend before.

She knew the dingy clothing store she was standing on.

Her heart was hammering in her breast as she slowly picked herself up against the edge of the neon sign and peered around it. She felt shaky. She felt _scared._ She slipped like an eel up onto the main roof, and shook her gloves free of excess water. She slipped a knife out into her hand, and flipped it casually back and forth between her knuckle as she surveyed the world around her from down against the parapet. Knife to the far left, to the far right. Left, right, left, right.

The deluge parted in half above her as the 'wing' of a poncho was lifted up overhead, and a gargoyal slipped in to the periphery of her vision, water slipping down the poncho like from a fountainhead.

Kinpōge prayed to Splinter the right elite ninja had just caught her, and slowly looked up to the tall cowl and sharp angle of the straw hat. His sheer size alone was his only immediate point of differentiation.

"Sensei," she murmured humbly, lowering her head.

"You look as if you are waiting for someone," Leonardo mentioned.

"Can I follow you?" she begged without looking up from the wet concrete.

He was quiet a long while after the airing of that question.

Sandro had told her, a long time ago—within days of meeting her—where his uncles tended to patrol at night. A sign placed by Mikey near their security computer had told her the family commute transpired across the Holland tunnel. A week ago, Leonardo had come out in the middle of the day and trained her in stealth, observation, and agility while doing a 'mock' patrol of neutral territory, all to keep her calm, like an intervention.

This building they now stood on was the closest he'd brought her to hostile territory, and it also happened to be roughly between the Holland Tunnel and the patrol grounds. She'd waited enough time for the commute, and then swung around to sit herself on this building. Which her Sensei had apparently also swung by to check before heading further Northeast. Which made _absolutely no sense at all,_ but the strange feeling tingly through her arms and chest said that maybe it made sense, _magically._

"You will have no autonomy." Her Sensei's voice was grave. "You will comply with my every instruction, verbal and non verbal, instantly and without question. Under no circumstances will you join in any form of combat; you are to be eyes, shadow, and silence. This, you must vow until the evening is concluded."

"Okay." The word came out easier like a pact with a demon. _Tell me what to do. Take care of me. Teach me everything._ The thoughts were insane and damning, the hole in Smaug's scales, because _nobody_ could be trusted with something so sacred as control of her, and she felt like she was holding the crack open upon her breast waiting for the Black Arrow. _Voluntarily._ Like she wanted to die.

Her Sensei breathed deep and was silent as he digested her reply. He did not question her. He nodded his head, visible only because of the incline of the straw hat. "Are you warm in that?"

She plucked at her high neckline, wondering if Chaosholics Anonymous might be as addictive as the original substance. "I have my training stuff on for insulation." The stuff he'd bought for her.

He accepted that. "I will teach you two initial sets of signs by which I will strictly direct your movements: One overt for visibility, one subtle for times in which I might be overseen."

"You aren't invisible?" she tried to tease. It came out as a mouse squeak.

"No. The Foot are ninja; they require some intelligence on my location and movements so that they can sleep at night. Were I invisible, our enemy would grow nervous for lack of information. I control their peace of mind by feeding scraps. But. They are to see nothing of you, not today, not if you accompany me a thousand times. Should I be forced into mortal combat, you are to remain concealed, to lay low, and, if necessary, to retreat with utmost stealth. Come, Kinpōgekun."

It was a _summons._ Thunder chased it like an omen. Feeling enthralled by a very different force of nature than she'd ever experienced growing up, Kinpōge skittered after the shadow of what was clearly some kind of gorgeously untouchable wind demon.

Sensei turned back, suddenly, and looked at her. Cobalt eyes widened as if something had just whacked him upside the head and shocked the human/turtle back into him. She almost glanced behind herself looking for an ambush as she joined him in crouching upon the parapet.

The hand which settled gently on the side of her hood explained everything. It came from an adorably flawed, emotionally retentive person who had apparently been placidly reviewing a mental checklist only to leap up in alarm, shouting 'oh, wait, this might be the part I'm supposed to imply positive reinforcement and emotional reassurance!' and the hilarity of his social incompetency made all cowed trepidation and spiritual confusion melt out from within her to join the harmless water all over the rooftop, 'till all that was left was trust.

Kinpōge skittered in close under her mentor's arm to be a lump of granite with him, and he slowly took her hand in his enormous three-fingered one, and began to show her the first of these signs, signs for 'wait,' and 'follow,' 'left' and 'right,' 'quick,' and 'slow,' 'low,' and 'high.' When she signed back to him, she didn't just use one or two fingers; she moved the pointer and middle as one unit, and the ring and pinky as a second unit. That got her a soft puff of air, and another light touch on the hood.

"I like your hat," she told him before they set off.

"It is traditional," was his splendidly mundane answer.


	83. Poor Man's Silencer

Kinpōge crawled up underneath her mentor's arm and against the panels of his poncho, peering cautiously out across the road from under his chin. The size difference meant she could fuse into his silhouette and vanish there. He'd directed her attention to a window with a partially broken panel, in a dark little run down brownstone apartment.

"That is a lookout," Sensei breathed to her. "The rain hinders his or her nightvision, which is why we are taking a peek."

She furrowed a brow, trying to read the tells of this. "Thermal imaging," she asked, "or visual spectrum light intensification?"

"The latter," her instructor whispered, unsurprised by her. "Infrared is too expensive for wide distribution on borders. It grows instrumental in their core operations, piercing smoke and cloth. It cannot be used to ID a human, but we, their greatest rivals, have a distinct shape."

"Do they employ snipers?"

"Very few. The Foot consider firearms unclean, offensive to their protective Kami; those who ultimately use them also ritualistically cleanse, and are the best of the best."

She frowned at that window. "Not one of you has ever been taken out at a distance..."

Sensei lifted up crossed fingers to forestall a jinx. "Michelangelo pulled Donatello out of the way once. Tore a stripe out of the side of his skull, and dropped him like lead. It took a week before the seizures stopped. His terror that his mental capacities might forever be tarnished was almost worse than the physical symptoms."

Kinpōge crossed every set of phalanges she had to make sure that jinx didn't sneak up on nobody. Sensei gestured against her side, and the two of them retreated to continue along patrol in silence.

Their conversations were rare and short. Sensei would call her up to a very protected position to show her something. Her questions stayed tightly scoped. His cautionary tales were two-sentence icebergs. There was an entire tactical vocabulary to absorb, written out there in the nooks and crannies of buildings. She filed away each granual of wisdom for later review and exposition. When he directed her down lower and away from him, to keep her hidden.

The world wasn't a playground right now. It was brutal and heavy, like the spray of blood from a man's throat, or a sniper round to the head. She picked her footwork carefully, quickly, and efficiently. She froze solid exactly when told to.

* * *

Some time in the middle of the night, Sensei steered the both of them out of border territory. They paused at a rooftop garden overlooking a large Wendy's 24-hour sign.

"It is lunch time," Sensei could make boring things sound epic. "Head down the rear wall, you will appear to have left the apartment complex."

Kinpōge did so, and opened up her backpack on the fire escape of said apartment complex. She flopped on a poncho, baggy pants, and proper shoes, and then casually moseyed on into the Wendy's at a skip. Someone was bumming free wifi to study for a college exam. A road crew and an off duty security guard were eating slowly, because nobody wanted to go back outside in this weather. Umbrellas and ponchos dripped everywhere. What a happening place at the wee hours of the morning! She ordered herself two sandwiches involving chicken, a boatload of fries, and two bottles of gatorade.

She didn't glance upward for Sensei as she returned, because that would be suspicious and in this darkness she wouldn't see anything. Crawling her way slowly back to him was an exercise in patience, because her nerves had already started sparking. He found her, actually, and ushered her under a rooftop pavilion that housed gardening supplies. The air smelled of well-fertilized potting soil.

Her mentor had already unfolded his brown paper bag lunch, courtesy of Donnie, into the world's neatest looking miniaturized picnic spread. There was a box of rice and another of dumplings, and a tiny box of soy. Sensei struck her as the kind of person who would have loved sushi and bento boxes. He stood at the corner of the pavillion and kept a lookout as she got out her sandwiches and unfolded the paper from around them. Then he came back and knelt down before his meal.

"Itadakimasu," Sensei said as he folded down his collar.

Kinpōge paused with teeth guiltily sunk into seseme seed studded bread. She released. "I-ita..."

A smile flashed in the dark. "Ita-daki-masu."

"Itadakimasu," she mumbled, and then watched in amazement as he scooped up a dumpling _with chopsticks_ and dipped them in soy. Kinpōge hadn't actually ever seen chopsticks or Asian food much outside of anime. Apparently the secret to white rice was its natural stickiness, because he used his chopsticks like a _shovel_ to pick chunks of it up.

Sensei noticed her stare. He seemed to contemplate her between bites and then abruptly flicked his chopsticks around, plucked up a dumpling with the reverse ends of them, dipped it in soy, and offered it to her.

Startled, Kinpōge leaned forward and gingerly nipped the dumpling free. It tasted like cabbage, pork, and some kind of spice. It was cold, but it was delicious. She looked down at her sandwhich and then grasped the bun and divided it carefully in half. She kept the half with the bite mark in it for herself, and hesitantly offered the other up to him.

Sensei straightened. "That is unnecessary."

She considered this, picked up a Wendy's napkin, wrapped the underside of the burger in it so there would be no grease, and then offered it out a little more.

Sensei hesitated. Then he tidily wiped his mouth, set the chopsticks flat down across the rice, and reached out to take the proffered sandwich. The way he bit into it was simultaneously dainty and yet weirdly ravenous. His eyes half closed, like the pleasure of fried chicken and mayo was positively _sinful_. She giggled.

"My brothers and I," Sensei told the story, "used to make games of figuring out how to order fast food without being seen. Double the points if we successfully paid for it."

"I was gonna say, you're making Wendy's look like quality cooking over there!" she sniggered, taking a bite of her own sandwich.

"Compared to other similar fare, Wendy's is quality," her Sensei informed blandly, and she grinned. He smiled knowingly. "Sometimes trash is a treat."

"I know that feeling," she agreed as best she could without chewing with her mouth open. She poured out some ketchup onto her sandwich paper, and then positioned the fries so he could take some. He placed a few more dumplings on her sandwich paper in trade.

"I really like your hat," she confirmed.

"It is called a _sugegasa._ Variations are as common in East Asia as types of rice. It is nothing."

She shrugged. "You always look beautiful in Japanese clothes, Sensei."

She got a wrinkle of his nose. "'Beautiful?'"

"Yeah," she popped a dumpling into her mouth. "Like a functional art object. _Aesthetically_ beautiful."

Her Sensei squinted at her over french fries he'd picked up and ketchuped with chopsticks. "That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, Kinpōgesan." Brows furrowed playfully. "Sandro is right, this sweet side he speaks of is not purely mythological."

Kinpōge grinned down into her second sandwich, and maybe blushed.

"Hurry with your food, child," he encouraged. "Rain is the poor man's silencer. If our eyes are sharp, we will see many surreptitious things happening through the shroud of it around Journal Square. Nice neighborhoods do not preclude infestations of Feet."

* * *

"What do I do if you're in trouble?" Kinpōge whispered as she stayed glued to his shell. They hung there, peering through rust and trussing, watching black suits assembling for meetings, ready to bolt if necessary. She was just invisible extra bulk to his poncho. "In an emergency?"

"Throw smoke bombs," Sensei said, startling her with an actual prescription instead of a chastisement for asking. "Do not give away your position. Get into hiding from which to text Donatello. It is best if you set up a brick phone with no back light to contact him with the hold of a button. That way you do not risk distraction and discovery."

"What if I can nail someone?"

Leonardo's voice was knowing. "The Master sometimes bites off more than he can chew," he intoned, low and bitter. "It is not an easy thing for the student to refrain from offering aid, this I know. You have some small confidence in your skills, even compared to mine, and you need a means of helping. But you must understand I will always prioritize you above myself. Split my attention, and you could kill me."

The realization of that power was heavy, because there was emotion hidden away in Sensei's voice. He sounded like he might be familiar with the topic, like it might resemble something that had actually happened to him once, or close enough, close enough to sear.

"Okay," she breathed, looking back to the limousines below.

A few minutes passed and they'd seen enough. He boosted her back up onto the landing above, and followed on her tail, keeping his silhouette and the integrity of his natural armor between her and any potential spies.

* * *

They'd made it back to Turtle Turf (tm) before light was even threatening on the horizon, but Leonardo got well within borders before creeping down to ground level and easing open a manhole, near to where she lived. By then there was just a little light, enough to see him by.

"Are you tired?" was what he asked.

She nodded.

"Good. Message Sandro when you get home," Leo said through the rain. "Take a hot shower, drink some herbal tea, and take some Vitamin C supplements. Go to bed at least an hour early."

She bobbed her head. He swung himself onto the ladder heading down, effortlessly holding that heavy manhole cover like a pizza box.

"Thank you," Kinpōge said.

Sensei paused. He reflected for a moment and then said to her, "Will you require work tomorrow?"

Work? Work.

Yes, the honest truth was that she would require some, and it showed on her face and in the slump of her shoulders.

Sensei merely nodded to himself, like this was expected. "You will meet me above _Johnson's Mechanic and Garage,_ promptly, half an hour after departing the lair. You will agree to the same rules each day I take you out. If you think that you cannot comply, or if you have other activities scheduled, you will warn me no later than Ninjitsu practice, lest I come looking for you. One more thing: You are never to go on patrol with Michelangelo nor Donatello. Patrol is dangerous, for you and for whosoever takes you. This responsibility is one I take only onto myself, as your mentor. Do you agree?"

"Okay."

He did not question her with regards to her compliance. He didn't seem to take it for granted, either. He nodded curtly. _"Mata ashita, Kinpogekun._ "

* * *

She unlocked the front door, pushed it ajar, and listened to the house, uncertain when her dad's shifted ended tonight. Things were still, and the lights were off. She stepped in out of the rain, dragging puddles onto the floor, and tiredly removed her poncho and baggy pants, which were soaked up to the mid shin and uncomfortable. She hung up the poncho, dropped her backpack off beside the couch, and pitched her pants for the laundry room. She was still dripping water everywhere.

Her phone was blown up with passive aggressive messages from Sandro, tagged each and every fifteen minutes from the time she'd left his house. She'd missed a few from Dad, which probably meant Sandro had tipped him off.

'Home safely,' she texted Dad as she headed for the bathroom.. 'Did not detonate anything or kill anybody. Successfully exercised good sense.' Kiss kiss heart heart emoticon.

'Sandro,' she texted Sandro. She flopped down on her bathroom toilet, grabbing blindly for some towels to at least mop her costume off.

No joke, her foresight could already hear the ringing, and he called her a literal half a heartbeat later. She picked the phone up to her ear and answered, "Yin?"

"Where were you?" growled a voice that could curdle blood. "You were supposed to game with me."

Oh yeah. "I-I can game now," she said. "I snagged a cheap headset the other day."

"Tell me."

She sank back against the lid of the toilet. "Training," she said. "I did a lot of training."

He took a moment to reply, and then at least he sounded more angry than ghoulish. "In a massive thunderstorm?" he demanded.

"I got myself snagged by Sensei mid patrol," she said. "I don't know why or even really how. It made sense. It was the only thing I could think of."

"Uncle Leo took you _on patrol_?" From the way Sandro said it, something was wrong about that. "My family would never do that, if the four of them have _anyone_ to shepherd or guide, they go out in groups of three or more. Two's an absolute, absolute minimum. It's dangerous, other people are liabilities, and the dynamics necessary to protect them require teamwork or, hell, at least backup."

"Ask him."

Sandro didn't need to; the fact that she'd said that more or less proved she wasn't lying. "Well shit," he said. "I'm jealous."

She laughed into the receiver. "No jelly," she mumbled, sinking into a palm and rubbing her face to stew in the reality of it all. "You're right, I'm a kid, not an asset. I can't even hear when ninjas are sneaking up on me in a normal room. If he ended up in a fight, the best I could _possibly do_ is not get tripped over. I felt like a nervous wreck talking to him and I—I needed something real to do, something physical, something that took over all my attention and senses and everything and... put me to work. He just took me with him, like he expected me to be there."

Sandro seemed to pace for a bit. "Well he's the boss," Sandro said. "He thinks you're ready to get an early sampling ofthis stuff, then it's so. You even technically kept your promise to your dad _if_ you didn't disobey any of Uncle Leo's orders."

"I didn't." She took a deep breath. "I was a saint."

"Now I'm jelly of Leo getting to see _you_ be a saint," Sandro huffed, but seemed much calmer. "I knew you were gonna go AWOL. I'm not surprised. Still frustrated with you, but not surprised."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, just be _honest_ ," he groused. "If you can't make it to a playdate with me, even a digital one, you _tell me._ You got that? I want to worry about you because you've trusted me with the truth, not because you've _ditched_ me. How's that fair? What's that say about how much I mean ta ya?"

"Nnnnnooo," she moaned, "I didn't meaann it liiikee thaaattt..."

"I know ya didn't, that's just how it came across, ya daft cracker, that's what I'm sayin' it for!"

"Blaaahhh," she huffed. "I'm sorry. I did a bad."

"Eh. I'll forgive you once," he absolved. "Gave me an opportunity to knock Donnie outta Imitation-Mom mode early."

"What?" Wild wrinkled her brow.

"Well basically he got all patronizing talking down to me about how me pacing back and forward across our atrium was unhealthy, because you're allowed to have your own life and blah blah blah, normal people, and I _smoked_ him for it, like hard—harder that I want to ever hit someone I love as much as my Uncle Donatello."

"Like how?"

"Telling him I'm allowed to feel whatever I want to feel, that my emotions only ever go out of sight out of mind for other people, that how dare he imply I'm doing something _wrong_ or worthy of _shame_ by wanting to worry about you, how dare he insinuate my model of the universe is wrong, just to get me to stop pacing so that he doesn't have to see it and be upset by how much I care. God, Wild, I can't tell ya how much it helped, last month, when you taught me that word 'gaslighting.' Or mentioned that people can do it unintentionally when they think they're right. Just... really saved me a lot of anxiety and self doubt about shit, ya know? and made me less personally angry at him for not knowing what he was doing."

"Holy _crap_ ," she was riveted but she did need to get out of this wet clothing, so she started the shower. "What did poor Donnie _say_?"

"He went all grim and quiet for a second but then snapped out of it and hugged me and told me he said he knew I was right and that even if there was any objective truth to things he'd been saying, it would have made sense to say them without using condescending vocabulary."

"D'aaaww." She grinned.

"We played a board game most of the night. So, like, my messages probably give the impression I was solidly angry at you the whole time, but after the first few hours Donnie got worried about you, too, so we were all kinda on the same level, and I mellowed out a lot."

"So much fluffy love," she warbled.

"D'you just start a shower?"

"Yeah," she was pulling off clothing. "Sensei said warm shower, tea, and Vitamin C."

"Well you heard the turtle! Call me back in fifteen minutes or whatever. You owe me some video games."

"Gooottt ittt!" she sang. "Gasp. Sandro, I'm naked!"

"Aaand this is where I hang up."

"You're supposed to say 'pics or it didn't happen!'" she squealed a bluff to end all bluffs.

BEEP.

That left her cackling maniacally with all the evil that was her birthright as thunder boomed and lightning flashed in the background. Er, or it _would_ have been her birthright, if she hadn't been adopted. Meh, she was totally Dad's brainchild. Woo, did she need some tea!


	84. Love Languages

"Did we get a dog?" her father asked, wide-eyed, as he ducked into the house and pulled off his blue hood.

"Hold on San!" Wildcard pulled off her headset and looked up at her father. "I _wish_ we did, I've my heart set on a Schnauzer and I'm positive Sandro not-so-secretly wants a Husky. Why?"

"You texted, 'Exercised good sense,'" Dad said. "Since the original meaning of that sentence is surely an anathema to you, my next guess was you'd named an animal 'Good Sense' and taken it on a walk."

Wildcard was already laughing by the time he finished. "Sandro is teaching me good English, remember? I have to capitalize names in text messages now!"

Dad sagged back in relief, though whether it was because her English wasn't terrible or because they hadn't just acquired a new pet for him to take care of, Wild couldn't be sure.

"I did good!" she promised. "Sorry I didn't answer my text messages, my phone was off and I was in the zone. I had a lot of wiggly feelings to stretch out."

Dad eyed her with a wry expression that suggested he knew the jist of where she'd been but didn't disapprove. He went to make early-morning-dinner. She winked at him and flicked her headset back into place.

* * *

"Raaaaaaaaa!" Wildcard rocketed into the turtle homestead just as soon as the door opened, tackling a startled Sandro straight out of where he'd been pacing across the atrium and into the kitchen, with a crack of his shell upon the floor. Thus started the first wrestling match of the day, in a tumble of fists, knees, elbows, fallen chairs, and half-executed pins.

Leo peered over languidly at them from where they smacked up against his chair, his half-mast eyes blinking slowly.

"Hi Sensei!" she recognized what turtle she was looking at.

"What caused his?" he inquired politely.

"Puberty," Sandro growled. "Next we're going to tear off our shirts barehanded, roar to the sky, roundhouse a bear, and fell some redwoods with just our fists."

"Aarrooo!" Wildcard agreed.

"I believe that means you are both hungry," Dr. Leo deduced as if these were the textbook symptoms of pubescent ninja hanger. "Donatello was struck by some distraction in the Lab late last night. I believe this leaves Mikey on cooking detail."

Orange saluted. "I'll need an assistant! Yo, Lil Bro, pass me a Mini!" he called. Sandro got both hands under her and threw her nearly to her feet, only for Mikey to snatch her about the waist and carry her off to the stove. "Aw yiss," Sunshine cooed, "it's time for cooking lessons!"

"Let's do eeeett!" Wild hollered. Her eyes widened. "Wait! I need a Stepladder of Menacing Aura constructed from the bones of that bear Sandro mentioned."

Mikey snickered, falling back to drag over a chair that he could plop her in. The casual hair tousle and forehead touch she got as they started were proof he knew she needed Love Armor to keep her sufficiently well-equipped for the week.

Once bacon and eggs were sizzling he nudged her with his elbow. "How ya feelin', Min?"

"Weeeeirrd," she admitted. "Dad accidentally interrupted my natural anxiety curve and I blasted into orbit. Pssseewwww. Mission control tells me I parachuted down somewhere in the Indian Ocean and nearly splatted clear into New Zealand. Man, I am like a _three year old_ at your counter tops, this is _embarrassing._ "

"You're def hobbit sized, Min!" Mikey taunted, and Wild squealed at him. "Well he _totally_ nailed meeting April and Raphie," Mikey debriefed, "April _likes_ him, I can tell."

That threw her for a loop. "Really?"

Wildcard had possessed some vague concept that Joker's conversation with April O'Neil and Raphael had gone 'well,' but she hadn't understood her father's objective. Weren't two new people harder to swallow than one? Her brain had been so focused on disaster scenarios that she'd forgotten it might well be within her father's power to get Sandro's parents to fall in love with him.

Joker had changed the whole game: Now everything was founded on a one-to-one relationship of equals, instead of Wild fighting her way through the Mom filter in a futile bid for a blessing.

"Hey Mini, lemme show you how to scramble the eggs, _properly,_ " he winked, and hiked up the bowl.

"'Creatively,'" Leo amended with a slow shake of his head.

Mikey spun the bowl around the whisk and rapidly got it to balance on top of one finger like a basketball. Then, of course, as long as he was moving fast enough, he could even spin the bowl upside down if he made use of centrifugal force. Eggs were centrifuged, not scrambled!

Wildcard eagerly tried to snatch the bowl from him.

Oh, this family, this family! He bounced the bowl along one arm, over the tip of his shell, and to the other arm. Like a basketball!

Some time later, hanging upside down from Michelangelo's arm like a Possum, Wildcard complained at Sandro, "You need to work on your agility, why can't you do any of this!?"

"Great!" Sandro growled, thumping a mug down and pouring orange juice for himself. "I'll get right on that when I'm no longer grounded and allowed outside into the sewers, preferably for more than two hours play time, with someone my size, who can't automatically wallop my tail in every feasible sport and isn't too distracted by repeatedly listing safety concerns!"

Mikey and Wildcard looked at one another. "Hangry," they agreed, and dove to gather food supplies.

* * *

"Wait, wait, we're not done!" Wildcard said on realization and then hopped off her chair and started looking through cupboards. "We need a rice cooker."

Leo's head came up from where he'd been sharping katana. He looked sharply her way.

"We're making homemade sausage and egg McMuffins," Michelangelo squinted at the skillet as if truly contemplating this culinary mystery, "where does rice fit in the middle, yo?"

"Not for breakfast!" Wild scoffed as she met the Tupperware drawer. Everything was neatly stacked and organized inside. It sure would be a shame if something were to... happen to it! Wait, she needed some of these! She reached around for appropriate boxes.

"What?" Mikey looked back at her.

"Donnie packs Leo lunch!" Wild explained halfway into the Tupperware cupboard as towers tumbled and crashed left and right. "He'll go hungry in martyred silence, we can't let it happen!"

"That's... unnecessary," Sensei tried to interject, but Wildcard popped up with sufficient tupperware.

"Do we have water bottles or something!?" she asked. "Do we have extra tea, will he drink cold tea, is that a thing, do we need to put sugar in it like Sweet Tea? How does one make Japanese food for him, is it frozen, do we have to make it from scratch, I'm positive he needs a steady diet of at least 50% Asian food each day or he'll develop indigestion, there can be no other explanation."

"I can bottle my own tea!" Leo protested, trying to rise through Michelangelo's answering laughter.

"Well then why didn't you bring any yesterday?" she scolded. "You left with just the paper bag. Shame on you, don't you know you need to _hydrate?_ "

Sensei sat back in his chair, mouth clamping shut. She'd got him!

"Thermoses are on the right," Sandro said slyly, good humor restored by the expression on Leo's face, and he got up to help her locate everything so they could take care of their poor, humiliated, kitchen-challenged family member together. "We have a couple super nice ones that'll keep it hot that long. Don't want Uncle Leo catching a cold out there, right?"

"Oh! I don't even want to imagine how he'd react to a cold. Either he'd doggedly pretend he didn't have one until he developed pneumonia or he'd just vanish mysteriously into the aether until it was cured. Either way, the effectiveness of his nighttime patrol would be compromised!"

"Extensively compromised," Sandro agreed.

Poor Sensei gave a tremendous, mute sigh, and then went back to tending his katana without another word, head hung low.

* * *

Mikey had managed to get Donnie to actually join them for breakfast, but Donnie did so without actually saying anything, and he was reviewing a holographic screen. Wildcard was trying not to crawl on top of Techno Uncle to get a closer look at his display interface.

"Did you take Donatello's herbal tea this morning?" Sandro asked her as they ate their matching sandwiches with their older family members and passed around the orange juice.

Donnie poured his OJ without even looking. That was impressive!

"No," Wild yawned, "I took a second cup of it last night before I started gaming with you. I don't own any real tea; coffee is disgusting. Then I remembered Donnie said no more than one per day, which is a pity, cause man they're delicious. Like Big Red gum, spicy peppermint. Alas. Time to bring out the Red Bull?!"

Sandro groaned.

Leo deftly picked up his tea kettle, leaned over the table, and poured into Wildcard's cup almost without her even noticing.

She blinked down in surprise at what had ended up in her glass, almost as if it had appeared there by magic. Then she looked to Sandro in alarm. "This cup has _flowers_ and _leaves_ in it!"

"Uh, yeah?" Sandro looked at the tea, whilst keeping his OJ well protected lest she steal it. "The flowers area Jasmine, the leaves are tea leaves. That's what tea is, Loudmouth, it's water and leaf juice."

"Tea is a bunch of powder in a bag with a string," Wild scoffed.

Leonardo's face suggested this description of tea had physically wounded him.

Donatello issued, in monotone, that: "Jasmine tea, like all green tea, is comprised primarily of water, antioxidants, and a mild dosage of caffeine." It was somewhat impressive Donatello could hear their conversation at all, much less deliver the zinger which followed: "That Leo prefers to drink his with its preparatory particulates still floating around in it is simply proof he is a time traveling barbarian from the feudal era."

Mikey laughed. By the look of Leo's laser vision right then, he was a time traveling robot about to Shoop Da Whoop on Donnie's unsuspecting face. Unless Donnie was somehow so incredibly _in the zone_ on every level right now that he could instantaneously flick his staff up to intercept literally anything coming at him. Which seemed highly possible, given Donnie's personality just in general.

"Jasmine tea," Leo intoned, "is largely Chinese, and has nothing to do with the _Muromachi_ period." He looked to Wildcard, and then threw his hook, bait, line, and sinker. "The flower is called 'Mistress of the Night,' because that is the only time it blooms. That is also when the tea must be brewed, night. Herbologists believe it regulates sleep and induces prophetic dreams, and it is connected with the Moon. The essential oil is highly volatile and therefore expensive. It has been used in ancient medicinal systems world wide since antiquity-"

Donatello interrupted him with a tap of that staff (aha, he _was_ holding it!) on the table. "It's — a — flower. A non-toxic, highly aromatic, white flower. Leo, the kids don't need you to fill their heads with your superstitious astrology and herbal mumbo jumbo."

Wildcard remembered telling Leo that the Lilly of the Valley incense he'd been telling her about was just a flower with carcinogens with flavoring.

Her stomach plummeted.

"Wow, Yin!" she whipped around to grin at her brother, smiling brightly, voice loud. "You come in flower form!"

Donatello scoffed, oblivious to how Michleangelo was tense and Leo had paused on the threshold of crumpling back into a crisp, tiff-postured, blank pillar.

"I think you could usage a dosage of Yin right now," Sandro commented dryly, flatly unafraid to be Princess of the Night if that's where she'd just gone.

She grinned ans hiked up her cup and took a big gulp, like tearing off a band aid! If it was terrible, then at least she'd know right away!

Oh. Well it definitely didn't taste like _coffee_. She took another slower sip, drawing it onto her palette. Tea itself was softly bitter, the way spinach was bitter, which made sense because they were both health leaves, but that didn't make either of them bad; and the smell drifting up her nose was sweet with all the intensity of rose flowers but none of the same character. Jasmine's smell almost tinkled, somehow, like a spritz of something mysterious on the air. Mistress of the Night indeed!

Michelangelo slowly relaxed beside her and patted her knee under the table, so she didn't have to look up to know Sensei must have been watching her, and that he'd calmed down and hadn't folded himself away where no one (especially Donatello) could reach him. Mikey would probably talk to both of them later. Families, as it turned out, were teamwork bonanzas.

* * *

Kinpōge/Wildcard neatly packed up Leo's dumplings, soy sauce, chopsticks, and tea, and folded up the bag. She inspected it, then hastily opened it, pulled all the food out, crumpled the bag up into a chaotic mess, uncrumpled it, and stuffed the boxes in diagonally. She found some tape to tape the molested bag in place like that. Diagonally. Then, repressing giggles, she ditched the cleanup crew for breakfast. Sandro shouted a curse word after her he forgot to sensor, and got swatted by Donatello, who was otherwise frozen in place studying data read outs.

Leonardo had gone missing on her, but the smell of incense floating out from the alcove led her to where he was cleaning and placing fresh materials out on his dead father's altar. She peeked in for a moment, and then tiptoed up beside him as he knelt down in seiza.

"What is this religion?" she asked.

"Shinto. Buddhist Shintoism." Sensei answered without opening his eyes, but did not appeared disturbed by her interruption.

"Donnie's cursed with 'Jesus Christ' before. Is that just an Americanism?"

"April is Catholic," Leonardo said. "If you asked me if I believe in an omnibenevolant greater deity I would likely say yes. You might say that our spiritualism is as purebred as we are. We do not even have a proper _Kamidana_ for the dojo..."

Hee! She settled down in seiza beside him. "I don't believe in gods," she said. "But I'd like to hear about them."

"Ah." He was quiet for a moment and then lifted his head and looked to her. "This is a very simple _Butsudan,_ which means 'Buddhist altar,' though oft in Japan you will see they are more like beautiful, ornate little cupboards. They symbolize the nexus or heart of one's worship in one's own home. The actual revered entities enclosed within may be gods or ancestors or both. In this case it is primarily the _ihae,_ the mortuary tablets of our ancestors, which serves to provide a home for their spirits for a time, both that we might ask them for insight, and so they do not wander in disorientation or despair."

"There are four," Kinpōge noted. "Who else has died?"

"This," he reached out and gently touched one, "is for our father, Splinter. These," he reached out and touched three more, "are for _our_ grandparents, Hamato Yoshi and his wife, Hamato Shen, and for their young daughter, who perished on the same day they did, despite our father's efforts to save her."

"Oh." Kinpōge peered curiously at the three foreign tablets, and then looked up at Leo. "It reminds me of the Disney movie Coco," Wild observed. "Is it like that?"

Leonardo smiled. "Día de Muertos? Yes. I traveled once in Central America. I noted the similarities between our _Butsudan_ and and the Mexican _ofrenda_. Their culture, the Mayan culture, runs deep and old. The Japanese, too, have a festival of the dead, called _Obon._ If humanity's sense of connection to our ancestors is imaginary, then it is an imagination we all share."

Kinpōge smiled. Sometimes turtles were more human than humans. "Have you and your brothers traveled all over the world?" she wondered.

"Once upon a time," Leonardo confirmed. "Our woes oft failed to stay conveniently scoped to the English-speaking sections of the North American subcontinent. And things did not necessarily settle down once Sandro was born. He was too young to remember much of our travels except, likely, the trip to Toledo."

"Holy Toledo! Where's that?"

"Spain."

Kinpōge was jealous and wanted stories, but Leo was felt like an onion she'd have to unwrap in layers. She looked back to the shrine. "What's the picture of the mountain?" it occurred to her to wonder.

"Ah. _Shumisen,_ " her mentor explained. "The mythological mountain at the center of the world, gateway to and dwelling place of the gods. You might liken it to Yggdrasil, the World Tree of old Nordic religions."

Leo was well-read. He liked this stuff. "Do you have any pictures of your father?" she wondered, because it felt odd to have a picture of a mountain but no actual people. "Do Japanese people not put pictures on the altar?"

A steely blue gaze perked up slightly. Leo thought about the query, and then turned around to ease open a small cupboard built into the wall that divided this alcove from the dojo. From within, he carefully drew out framed picture with the glass protected from dust by a sheet of rice paper. He removed the paper, and took a long look before turning to offer it to her. Her eyes spied what _might_ have been a photo album sitting beneath it.

"The four of us... we had few photographs of him," Leo said as Kinpōge took into her hands the picture and studied it. "Certainly no portraits. It did not occur to us we might one day covet them."

Master Splinter had indeed been a rat, and he was sitting on the large gnarled root of the sakura—the very same sakura she and Sandro liked to do homework under. His tail was thick, easily as thick as a normal man's calf, and his hands and toes were supple and wrapped in martial arts grips. He was leaned forward slightly, and leaned heavily upon a short T-shaped cane that suggested he might have a bad back or maybe just arthritis. A chunk was missing from one of his ears and he seemed to be missing a finger on one hand (paw?) The almost-smile he turned into the camera was deep and layered. He looked like someone stern almost to the point of being militant, but he had this spark of humor and tenderness if you stared at him long enough. Of course! He'd raised Michelangelo and Donatello without squashing their little prankster spirits, hadn't he?"

"Who took this?" she wondered. "It's a pretty good portrait."

"April," Leo revealed, and she blinked up at him. "April is in the habit of photographing literally everything she encounters. Certainly rat and reptile men. All our memories, she was the only one with the foresight to preserve them in journal and in image. I think Sandro takes after her."

 _That'll end up including pictures of me and my dad._ But Joker had already thrown his dice, and he'd known exactly what he was getting into when he'd started.

"Why isn't this on the altar?" Kinpōge finally wondered as she offered the photograph back.

"I placed it aside when we had a proper Ihai made," Leo murmured, gazing again at the photograph. " It... it made us sad. Deeply, deeply sad, for a very long time. The smooth stone of the spirit tablet was an easier face to meet each day. I still bring the photo out for Obon, New Years, and birthdays."

"I'm sorry." Story time about this would have to wait for another day. "Can you teach me more Japanese before warm-ups start?"

"Ah." Sensei went to replace the photograph in storage. "This is a _todana,_ " he said of the little cupboard. "The larger one in the bathroom corridor is an _oshiire_. That is where the linens are stored. And the little shoe rack beside the door, that is a _getabako._ "

* * *

Author's Note: I want to advise everyone that the 'major conflict' of this chapter of the kids' lives was Sandro's showdown with his mother. With that mostly behind us, this phase of the story is rolling towards it's resolution! I will eventually pick a place to start the sequel! Don't worry about it just yet, just keep your eyes peeled for when it happens XD]


	85. Mixed Bag

The days (nights, mostly) proceeded at an elevated tempo but an unexpectedly structured rhythm. It went like this:

Wake up, hug Dad goodbye, meet Mikey, play in the sewers by skateboard for about an hour, get to The Turtle Homestead in time for tea and breakfast, Ninjitsu for two hours, snacks, homework with Sandro under the sakura, play activities for two hours, leave the Lair, rendezvous for patrol at randomly selected building, proceed with on-the-job stealth training, lunch break with paper bags and late-night fast food, apply stealth lessons for remainder of night to watch meaningful Foot movements, receive brief, weighty lessons in deciphering meaning from small clues, then back to safe territory, home, shower, tea, vitamin C, more homeschooling with Sandro long-distance, dinner, video games, bed, repeat.

Wildcard could not remember the last time her life had felt so regular. Somehow, her insomnia was staying down. Between moonblood week (or her 'feminine situation,' as Donnie had so delicately put it), the rigorous wire-tight tension of patrol, and the set-in-stone timing of Sandro's bedtime, her own bedtime was managing to fall consistently within a one-to-two hour period, and she was getting up at the exact same hour every morning. It was _weird._ It didn't feel like it could last forever, but for now it was holding her marbles all together in the same bowl.

Either that or she secretly liked the feeling of _protection._ It confused her that her dad's oversight didn't feel as strong a balm as the turtles'. Maybe it was cause she needed a balm for madness, specifically. Or maybe it was just because Leo was at the top of New Jersey's food chain, and this was his turf and his bad guys, and even Mikey had some of that same dominant-wolf-pack aura oozing off him.

Another thing: On patrol, she was struck by how mundane Foot agents could be when in plainclothes. Unlike the Turtles, they could go anywhere and blend seamlessly into society, just like her and her dad.

There was no more time for parkour or skate parks, but Wild wasn't sure she minded. She'd made acquaintances out of doors, but never _friends_ , and it was starting to dawn on her that Foot recruiters could be anywhere or anyone, hunting for talent amid poor or disenfranchised youngsters at every public park and exercise facility. Wild was entering the perfect window of age ranges where she'd be interesting to them. Previously 'safe' public recreation places now felt like minefields and traps. If she was going to practice her wall run anymore, she preferred it be under Sensei's watchful eye, or in the back of Dad's bar for tips and wagers.

She wanted not to mess everything up. She felt dangerous to herself (the slit throat, the three dead Foot, the skyscraper, Tony Stark) and had this superstitious certainty that everything—family harmony, Dad's safety, Leo's approval, staying in Jersey, everything—depended upon her successfully not killing anybody else. At least until she was way, way older.

* * *

Sandro was agitated.

Every morning started off with him feeling like a moody, unfriendly, passive-aggressive jerk. Shell, he didn't even like listening to the words that came out of his own mouth around the breakfast table, much less _saying_ them.

Each day it took time for him to chill out and readjust to having his companion around, and no sooner would he start enjoying than it would be time for her to leave. Stupid things were getting him mad. He felt like he had a hair-trigger temper, and he didn't like it. He wondered if he'd be less jealous if two of his uncles weren't getting to spend additional time with _his_ friend. It made a form of sense, for him to be jealous both of the attention she was giving them and they were giving her, but that didn't mean he wanted them to stop. If anything, he was desperate for Leo to somehow succeed at keeping Wild pinned down till Friday game.

Those two hours of playtime Sandro got with her, they were driving him insane. Two hours was _never_ long enough. He found himself repeatedly glancing back at the wall clock. Normally, he and Wild just sort of rolled from activity to activity however pleased them; chores, exercise, robot kits, internet inquiries, video games, and Mikey's dance lessons, and eventually Leo would return and Wildcard's departure was never more than a minor downer, to be corrected first thing come morning. But now?

Now chores, lessons, kits, and video games felt like an attack upon territory allocated specifically for the two of them to be 'together.' The first day they spent half the time just figuring out _what_ to do, with Sandro unable to get excited about anything, and by the time they'd gotten halfway into it, their timer went off and it was time for her to leave. He was furious at himself for _hours_ afterwards. No activity felt sufficient to deserve a place in that two-hour block, so the end result was literally _every_ activity would have felt him achey and resentful. But at least he should have picked something and used the full two hours!

Sandro started brainstorming out activities ahead of time. He made a list. He'd have out a board game already set up for play by the time she arrived, and a laptop already open to google, and the console with video games preloaded. Setting everything up gave him a way to work through his anxiety, but when the next day _did_ come, their two hour play period felt tense and awkwardly goal-driven.

Shit. He was getting mad. It sure didn't help that Donatello was still distracted by scientific mysteries and ergo providing zero parental guidance. Sandro could have used advice. Sandro could have used help venting.

Wild could tell he was a mess, if the way she greeted him every day by initiating a brawl was any indication. He'd have usually calmed down by the end of Ninjitsu practice, so she sidled right up against him during study time on the first day. The second day, she outright laid on the top of his shell. He didn't even roll to knock her off. On the third day, though, he was still hot, still _mad,_ and his nerves prickled when she tried to get close, and he had to get a foot of space between them so he didn't explode.

The real problem was he didn't feel like he had _any_ breathing room. He ought to have talked _to her,_ but if she even tried to bring his mood up, he'd get so crazy frustrated they were 'wasting' time talking about their tight time budget that he'd blow a fuse. He'd already pitched a textbook across the room once today, and he didn't like the look on her face when he did it, but he couldn't _control_ himself. The rest of the study period he was sullen, angry with himself for being unable to enjoy having her around.

Maybe he should have just talked to her over the damn phone, but somehow he couldn't. Maybe because he was paranoid about relatives listening in. Would Donnie wiretap him? Really? Did Sandro believe that?

Graaaahhhh!

* * *

Michelangelo cornered him shortly after Wild had left.

"You need to play with me," Mikeys said.

Too busy aggressively jabbing controller buttons and cussing under his breath every time his avatar was shot by fucking newbs, Sandro gave a terse, negative shake of his head. "Leave me alone," he growled.

Mikey hit the off button on the console. Not the one on the front either, which would have just paused the thing; he flipped the power switch in the back and it was full lights out.

Sandro leap forward, threw the controller at him—Mikey caught it—and spat expletives at his face. Mikey sacked him onto the couch, and they ended up brawling and tumbling around the living room floor for almost an hour straight, until Sandro was gasping for air and shaky from bruises and absolutely exhausted energy reserves, buried under four hundred pounds of absolutely unbeatable larger turtle. They had _crushed_ one of their console controllers and put huge shell gouges into several pieces of furniture, including the entertainment stand. The television screen, miraculously, had survived.

Mikey stood up over him, grabbed his shell, and hauled him up to his knees. He squatted down, laying a hand on either side of Sandro's face, cupping his cheeks and nuzzling his brow and temple. Sandro sagged, shuddering. He felt on the point of tears and yet at the verge of screaming and trying to gouge out someone's eyes, both simultaneously.

His uncle boosted him to his feet and then let go. "Get your coat," he said, apparently unsatisfied with the results of the brawl.

Sandro twitched, feeling electrocuted after being dead on his feet. "What?"

"We're going out for a walk," Mikey said, rummaging for a water bottle and finding a soccer ball.

"I'm grounded," Sandro mumbled, dazed, because Mikey had never, ever, done anything like all this before. Mikey usually slunk away to poutwhen Sandro vented on him, and that always left Sandro more wound up and miserable than before he'd vented. "I can't go out in the sewers."

"Who's going to know?" Michelangelo asked him with a grin that almost looked like it belonged to Raphael for a second. "Donnie? Get your coat and kama, we're going for a walk, and then we're going to do some agility training."

Sandro stared numbly up at him for a moment, eyes wide. Then he bobbed his head rapidly, twisted about, and staggered for his bedroom door.

The next three hours passed in a giddy, hysterical, nervous blur. Apparently teenagers weren't the only people changing around here.

"H-how did you know what to do with me?" he asked halfway through a second water bottle as Mikey squatted down to teach him how to springboard off a relative's shell. "How did you know to...?"

"Dunno," Mikey shrugged with a smirk. "Had to try stuff, right? See what worked. You're a lil like Raphie, but you're so _conscientious._ It's like you can't even vent because you feel like a bad person. Man, it's time everybody stopped standing around gawping and flinching, goin 'Iunno where this is comin' from, do you?' 'naw me neither,' and just rolled with it like Minimeme does. It's like you got like two contradictory puberty cards, you need help, that's our job! Right? We're the adults here, we oughta be _useful,_ if none of our defaults work we oughta improvise! Okay. Start in three... and catch the soccer ball, mandatory!"

"Got it. _Got it._ "

* * *

Leo was never the person who stepped in to fill in for parental guidance when Donatello was mentally absent, which was why his decision to ease open Sandro's door and check up on him before bed that evening was completely unprecedented.

Sandro looked over to the door and blinked twice before accepting the identity of who was standing there. "Uncle?" he shifted covers to sit himself up. "Do you need something?"

But Leonardo waved for him not to get up, and came in to turn and sit sort of daintily upon the edge of the bed. He was still dressed in his black cat suit with his katana strapped at his waist instead of over his shell. He still smelled faintly of rain.

"I have been recommended to speak with you," he said as if they were employees at a company instead of an uncle coming into his nephew's room to say goodnight to him.

"Oh, that's... you don't have to," Sandro muttered.

"Nor does anyone 'have to' make me lunch," Uncle Leonardo remarked.

Flummoxed by this odd bedtime guest, Sandro frowned up at his eldest uncle.

"I have seen you are frustrated," Leonardo prompted after a mildly strained silence, "but I am not the one down here with you all hours of the day, watching it, seeing how it pervades your waking hours. Will you tell me how you are... feeling, so that I might be better informed?"

"I... just..." This was awkward. "I thought I'd be okay if I at least got to see her, but I'm _not_. I miss her all day long. Today I couldn't even have fun, I felt like pressurized explosives, I felt like—" a lump rose in his throat, "—I felt like _Dad_ does sometimes when he comes home in a bad mood." Which meant all of that, that 'abuse' in the dojo, it had always happened because Dad had _wanted_ to see him but hadn't been able to control himself, and the nastiness was inherited.

"Hmm. Well I would not go that far; you are much more self-aware than your father." Ha! Oh. Wow. "Michelangelo has suggested to me that while last weekend was an unabashed success for you, and ought to have left you happy, the actual experience of going through each day has not felt victorious. You may be haunted by a repeated reaquaintance with the sensation of losing your sister. It is tricking your senses and making you panic and despair."

Sandro slipped his arms around his knees and sighed. "What am I supposed to do?" he mumbled. "What if mom wants to extend this rule, and I'm too angry to make any sense? She's going to act like it's _weird_ for me to be this dependent on having Wildcard around _._ "

"Perhaps there are ways of thinking about the situation which will help you find a temporary patience," the eldest suggested. "Some peace of mind would solve several problems for you at onc-"

"You know what it feels like?" Sandro interrupted. "Mom's _rationing_ my contact with the only other living thing my age in my entire myopic universe who I get to see on any day other than holidays," Sandro said, heat building behind his eyes. "Like Wild's a _pain reliever,_ some kind of temporary or addictive medication I could OD on. Our world is _tiny,_ and every new piece of sensory or social input is like opium and so obviously that's why we can't have any."

"Oh," Leo groaned as he brushed his knuckles sympathetically against Sandro's bandanna and cheek, "you are alone too often with you thoughts, and they are as convoluted as Donatello's but with metaphor and poetry. Your energies turn inward and fester instead of flushing out. Alas, fishing will not help one such as you, I fear."

Sandro coughed a tiny laugh, and Leo gently pet the side of his head. Sandro took a deep breath and muttered out: "The situation's rapidly reminding me how much of an unfriendly pisser I was last winter, and why none of my problems got solved any sooner than this."

Leonardo made a sympathetic click in the roof of his mouth, and shook his head. "That was a time in which you were trapped in a lattice of contradictions; a problem larger than one person, which we all sculpted, suffered from, and must help to mend. You have come very far since then. You spent a great amount of that time thinking, and learning."

Yeah well Sandro didn't feel any wiser. Just a couple pounds heavier, stronger, grumpier. He squeezed his knees. "I need her here."

"You remember keenly that she was the catalyst for the rapid change which tore through our family. You feel as if time could go backwards without her there to anchor things. But that is 'panic,' not 'need.'"

"Ya know Uncle Leo, I'd prefer if adults didn't try to tell me what I need or don't need."

Leo shook his head. "What you feel towards your sister is not 'need.' People need food, food does not need people. Your sister misses you, too."

Was that Leo's way of saying the word 'love' without saying it?

"Listen," Leonardo said, gently touching his bandanna. "There is a reason the yinyang is drawn with a dot on each side, and with its elements in a spiral. One gives to the other, and flows into the other. There is yang in yin, and yin in yang. This means there will be days when your sister will be shadow, days in which _you_ will be fire. That is how she is holding on to herself now, by carrying you with her. She is doing something _you_ might do in her position: training harder to take her mind off things. Are not Ninjitsu and exercise also two of _you_ _r_ havens?"

Sandro hesitated, frowning.

"Take your strength from the pieces of her you carry with you," Leonardo advised with a gentle tap upon Sandro's snout. "As you take strength from the pieces you have of _us all_. Draw on the strength and eloquence that is, through your mother, your _birthright._ Friday will be here soon enough, and you are frightened of being overtaken by her. But you must remember, you have already won the pivotal battle. Use what you have learned from everyone. Use what your sister has taught you. The words will flow. Things will be okay."

The littlest turtle was quiet a long moment. Then he nodded quietly. Leo hesitantly leaned over and tried to hug him, and Sandro let him and hugged a little back.

* * *

"Sandro!" Wildcard popped up that morning with zero aggressiveness, and Sandro wondered if she was telepathic or if the two of them really did share emotional backwash with each other. "I am not a neko!"

Sandro had no idea what that meant. He wondered if Wildcard had any idea what that meant. He suspected possibly not; she was just telling him she was frazzled. "H-hey. Sorry about yesterday," he smiled tentatively. "I was grouchy."

"Boy _were_ you!" Her eyes widened. "Don't you know that if you go insane, we're both doomed? Seriously, we'll end up the leaders of some world-famous crime organisation, I'm sure of it, Dad and Leo will be _so_ disappointed."

He smiled bashfully and hunched his shoulder a bit.

She immediately absolved him, kissing her fingers and patting him upon his snout. "I brought an activity for after lessons! And you can't say no, because it's important!" She plopped down her backpack and peeled it open, revealing plaster and strips of very thin cloth.

"What's that for?" he wondered.

"Halloween!" she explained. "I need a plaster cast of your head! Well, your face. Mostly your jaws. Do you want to go as a crocodile?" She winked.

Holy _shit._ Comprehension settled in. Sandro's eyes flew open wide. _It's not for 'Halloween.' It's for the makeup!_ Wild was telling him she was going to work on a foam latex prosthetic to try and disguise his beak and snout. He'd almost forgotten about the black wig hiding in a crate in Donnie's lab! At the realization he was going to get to show off an even better version of that face to his parents in the near future, a huge grin lit up his face.

"You're going to have to hold still during it," she mentioned. "No smiling, talking, anything. I always end up ruining ones Dad does for me, whoops!"

"I will be a _statue,_ " Sandro solemnly vowed, grinning wide down at his sister. "Uh, though, quick question. How am I going to _breathe_ with strips of plaster over my face?"

"A straw, naturally!"

Sandro blinked. "I just realized that must be where the whole, 'Ya wanna end up breathin' through a straw!?' threat came from. It means you're going to break someone's jaw, so they'd have a plaster cast all over their face. Doesn't it?"

Wildcard snapped her fingers. "Bingo!"

* * *

Sandro heard the whoosh of the lab door as Donatello exited. Purple entered the kitchen like he had blinders on, or maybe a head's up display that grayed out every conceivable target except for the coffee machine. He went to it, tall mug in hand, and poured until it reached the top.

When he turned around, Sandro got the pleasure of knowing he was one of Donatello's favorite things in the world, because Donnie actually registered his presence and looked at him.

"What is happening?" Donnie asked, immediately, with all the accidental sharpness of someone who was high on adrenaline for pursuing a difficult line of scientific inquiry back in his lab.

Sandro couldn't answer and had to work super hard not to smile.

"Plaster casting!" Wildcard explained for him.

"What for?" Donnie asked.

"Halloween costumes!" Wildcard explained gleefully. "We need some defensible basis on which to wheedle and whine for the parents to let us go trick-or-treating!"

"That is strongly unlikely to happen," Donnie said. "Do continue." And with that hilariously blunt and slightly contradictory set of things aired, off he went back to his lab.

Sandro lost a puff of air in a laugh, and Wild glared at him. "Don't you dare," she said. "Just a couple more strips and then it'll set super fast! Don't you ruin it!"

Sandro held up crossed fingers.

* * *

Afterwards he asked her, "Are you gonna sculpt the mold?"

She shook her head. "No, this requires an artist's touch. Dad's gonna do it. He's already bought the clay and supplies"

"I love your father," Sandro mumbled happily.

Wild giggled mischievously to herself. "What do you think Donnie's up to in the lab?"

"I actually haven't looked," Sandro admitted. "I must have some kind of dismissive-avoidant attachment problem."

"A what-what-what?"

"I'm Googling psychology a lot while you're gone," Sandro explained. "Sorry, I'mma sound like WebMD for a few days."

She giggled. "Well why don't you go bully your way into being his lab assistant after I leave?" She asked. "Don't take 'no' for an answer, if the absolutely worst case happens and he yells at you, he's gonna feel soooooo guilty afterwards and you'll get a massive adorable apology."

"Good point. He usually likes when I take an interest. I could use a job"

"You feeling better today?" she poked.

He nodded with a big, relaxed sigh. "Yeah. You?"

"Yeah but it's a mixed bag," she admitted. "I'm feeling all kinds of weird things I don't know what to do with. I spend an hour every night trying to fall asleep just looking through pictures of us together. It's like I'm grieving or something, what's with that?"

Sandro's heart fluttered. He watched her face for a moment, and then reached out to slip his elbow behind her head and bring their foreheads together. Wild always seemed to _like it_ , like it pinned her down and positively energized her. He liked sharing it with her. He liked holding here fastened there by nothing more than shared breath.

"It sounded so practical in concept," he mentioned at last. "Five hours sounded like a lot of hours."

"Yeah! Until you realize the average person is awake fourteen hours every day."

"Right, leaving us with exactly what to do with the remaining seven? I'm still _grounded._ "

"I have a plan," Wildcard announced! "Paint a wall, and sit down, and watch it dry, record the entire thing. Seven hours of footage. Present it to your mom on Friday. Label disk with 'activities Sandro has left to do after exercise, gaming, chores, education, and food.'"

Sandro busted out laughing. "That'll be my ultimate form of protest! Donnie will be on the phone with her within an hour: 'Um, April... April he's watching paint dry. Literally. He is sitting on the floor, calmly watching a blank wall... of drying paint... for hours. I am not kidding.'"

"'Leo just sat down to join him," Wildcard added in hushed terror to this narrative, "Now they are both sitting there, watching paint dry. Not talking to one another. April I'm freaking out.'"

"Ha! Well _that'd_ get my dad home to rescue me in a hurry!" Sandro cackled. "Probably'd attack Leo and then slap me yelling, 'The Power of Christ Compels You!'"

The kids fell laughing all over one another, and hugged and settled in close to just relax in a pile and enjoy the physical nearness. Wildcard traced his shell scutes. Sandro played with her hair. Both kids enjoyed being able to smell one another, enjoyed the feel of a heartbeat, enjoyed the feeling of breath; but they weren't going to talk about those things, because they sounded silly.

Things were going to be okay.


	86. Birthright

"Sandro!" yelled eight-year-old Shadow in greeting, which was how Sandro learned something had gone terribly awry in this Friday's scheduled sequence of events.

Sure enough, Donatello was already out of the lab, inspecting the incorrect tiny blonde person who'd just rushed up to Sandro in greeting. She had military cameo paint on half her face and was clearly enjoying her trip to the sewers.

"Holy crap, what are you doing here?" Sandro had to wonder, reaching out to ruffle her hair.

She shoved away his hand, laughed, and prodded him in the arm. "Like you aren't happy to see me!" she taunted, and ordinarily she'd have been right; Shadow had the honor of being one of the few kids Sandro had ever met prior to Wildcard, and she was definitely the one he'd gotten to see the most often. "Dad's coming to yell at Mikey for being a tub of lard, ha-ha!"

Sandro leaned back on his heels, hit by the sudden certainty that somewhere, out there in the multiverse, there was some other dimension where Michelangelo and Shadow were thick as thieves. Surely right now Alternate-Dimension-Mikey was getting a cold shudder from the vibes radiating out from the events in Sandro's dimension. Bless that poor Other Mikey. His Shadow was probably much nicer than this one.

"How fortunate for Michelangelo that he isn't presently here," Donatello issued in monotone, because he was much too busy solving electrical transference across an alloy in the lab to actually conjure up normal human/turtle emotions for this otherwise problematic event.

"Really? Well he can't be far," Shadow deduced with a thoughtful squint and a rub of her chin.

"Where is that lazy fat-ass?!" hollered Mr. Jones' from the doorway as he stepped in, all shoulders, pectorals, and shaggy hair, and always in a shirt with a few stains and pants with a few holes. "I am going to beat his tail into last month so he can finish those strips on time!" By the drawn hockey stick, he definitely meant it. Oh dear. Who knew being a cartoonist could be so dangerous? The cause of all his alarmingly timed hubbub dawned on Sandro: Since the day he had first been grounded, had Mikey work even a single day? Had Sandro seen his uncle working at his laptop? Pick up a pen or pencil? Ink or color anything?

"Donnie says he's not here!" Shadow reported dutifully as her father approached. "I'll check the dojo just in case!"

Holy crap she was like his little gestapo or something! Sandro broke out laughing to himself and quickly grabbed hold of Shadow's arm. She didn't like this and immediately set her feet to rebel, but Sandro looked up to her father.

"Hey Sandro!" Casey beamed as if he weren't about to wallop someone (or maybe _because_ of that). "Your parents are probably already on their way home, right?" That was code language for Casey would be hanging out with Raphael after the Mikey-pummeling, so Shadow would be around.

"Yeah, they are, but Mikey's not here yet, he-"

"You had better not help him escape!" Shadow punched Sandro in the arm again. "Where's your phone? Don't text him!" She started grabbing around Sandro's shell, looking for that phone.

Donnie thwacked Shadow over the head with his staff. She was so stunned she actually cringed there for a second, baffled by what had just occurred.

"Hey," Casey protested, easing an arm around her as if she hadn't mistaken herself for a overzealous police officer. That was fair, she was definitely her father's daughter. "Watch where you swing that thing, _Purple_." The way Casey Jones said 'purple' had a way of making it sound like like an unflattering description of what he thought of Donatello's sexual orientation. Sandro sighed heavily.

"Michelangelo is chaperoning a guest to our house," Donatello explained, leering over Casey and raising an eyebrow. "Someone you have not previously met."

That stopped Mr. Jones short, and too late he realized the dangers of not calling ahead. "Shit. This person dangerous? They an info leak or anything?"

"Probably not to Shadow," Sandro mused. "After they beat their chests, hoot, and throw around boulders for a few minutes to establish which one of them is dominant, they should get along just fine."

"She's a teenager," Donatello explained to Mr. Jones' confused expression. "Sandro has a friend."

Both eyebrows raised, and Mr. Jones turned a quick half-grin towards Sandro, almost in a congratulatory way. Sandro was briefly confused. "No shit?" Mr. Jones asked. "Your girlfriend hot?"

Sandro and Shadow looked to one another. Shadow looked as appalled and disgusted as Sandro felt. They looked back to Mr. Jones.

"Uh, she's kind of a _dude,_ " Sandro explained. "Like the kind of person who will one day tell you 'hold my beer,' whereupon they'll grab grab the helm of the four wheeler, produce a Molotov cocktail from their back pocket, light it using a match they're holding in their teeth, and then a few hours later you'll be sitting black and blue and slightly crisped in the back of a police cruiser listening to them listening to their laugh their ass off with a nearby building on fire and dead evil ninjas everywhere."

Casey swung towards him with a grin, and busted out laughing. "Ha! What!? Hahahaha! That's—This is a _girl?_ What's April think, where'd you meet her?! What's _Raph_ think?!"

"Well Leo's actually teaching her ninjitsu now, but-"

The front door opened again.

"Sandro!" blonde maniac number two rushed into the house, vaulted over a chair, leaped off a table, and pounced at Sandro, who shoved Shadow into her father so that Insane Hockey Dad could successfully feel like his offspring was safe without actually resorting to swatting Wildcard out of the air with that hockey stick. As it turned out, this was unnecessary; Leonardo appeared out of nowhere, caught Wildcard out of the air by the scruff of her clothes, and pulled her up short.

"The hell?" Mr. Jones exclaimed, hand on his hockey stick but looking more amused then angry.

"Hello, Casey," Leonardo greeted with a polite nod as wild dangled there. "This is my apprentice."

"Meow!" Wildcard agreed and lifted one hand to wave.

"Hmm," Leo squinted at nothing in particular. "Further study of MGM films is required."

Sandro nearly missed that a joke had been told, it was delivered in such graceful deadpan. But MGM was the company with the roaring lion as part of it's logo, and a tiny lion or apprentice lion could be 'a cat,' because a cat was exactly the sort of adorable, tiny, harmless animal whose attempts at looking majestic would lead one to believe it had mistaken itself for a lion. Which would make Wildcard's 'I am not a Neko!' proclamation from the day before make a form of sense, because naturally Wildcard could be 'a cat' but she could not be 'a cat girl,' as that would be cutsie anime madness violating her intrinsic lumberjack persona.

Damn, Sandro had just followed all of that lateral nonsense. He felt like giving himself a pat on the back. 'Fluent in Wildcard,' six points!

"Omigod we have guests," Wild said as if she'd just realized other human beings were there. "How did this happen!?

"Introduce yourself, child," Leonardo suggested as he deposited her on her feet.

"In what language?" Wildcard asked. "Help, I'm scared!"

"Uh, I only do English," Casey said quickly with a wave of both hands.

"Oh! Hi, I'm Wildcard!" she greeted like a blooming flower. "Are you the awesome slightly dumb awesome crazy guy with the hockey stick who Donatello seems to hate in this snooty smarter-than-thou brains-vs-brawn way!?"

"I'll take that description, yeah," Mr. Jones agreed, leaning over to grin down at this girl who wasn't even a full foot taller than Shadow.

Donnie sniffed. "Her name is _Anastasia_ "

"I think he compares me to you!" Anastasia/Wildcard/Yang/Loudmouth/whoever-she-was said to Mr. Jones. "It's an _honor_ , sir!" she gave her flourished musketeer bow.

"They're here for Mikey," Sandro interjected because somebody deserved some warning.

Wildcard looked to him in surprise. "What for?"

"Dad's gonna beat him into last month," Shadow exposited, her posture recoiled slightly as if she wasn't certain what she thought about this situation or Wildcard's sudden existence.

"Oh-ho, 'what for,'" Casey Jones growled, growing dark and punching a closed fist into an open hand, "I'll tell ya 'what for!' He's late on his deliverables, he's not answering messages, he's not working, he's sittin' on his fat ass and playing video games _again_. I have ta go in again in a mook suit to 'explain' why he's behind!"

Wildcard grinned from ear to ear and then whipped towards the door and held her hands up like a megaphone. "SUNSHINE RUN IT'S A TRAP!"

"What's a-?" came a laughing voice from a door, before Mikey froze up like a deer in headlights, eyes widening to dinner plates as Casey Jones whirled on him.

Nostrils flared. Target acquired.

"YOU." Poor Orange barely managed to leap backwards before and Casey was already after him, hockey stick raised. Mr. Jones was fast and big for a human, and MIkey was not sticking around to try and fight fair.

"Why'd you warn him!" Shadow disapproved with a shove at Wildcard.

Wildcard, who stepped nimbly out of the way of the shove, looked down and gave Shadow a big manic smile. "Why not!? Mikey's adorbs!"

"Ugh!" Shadow disapproved. "He's such a _fruit._ "

Blink blink. "Then I don't think I can be friends with you!" Wildcard oozed crazy as she grinned down at Shadow. "But just for kicks, what's your name?!"

But Wildcard wasn't the only one offended by people calling Mikey certain names. Donatello had whirled around like a dragon, glowering down at Shadow as he rounded Leonardo, pushed Wildcard out of the way, and asked in a ghoulish growl, "Is that something your father says in front of you?"

Shadow leaned back, uncertain. Donatello had already thwacked her once today.

"Oooookaaay!" Sandro stepped in the middle of everyone, hands raised placatingly. "Shadow, don't call my uncle 'a fruit.' In fact, don't call anybody that, it's rude. Wild? Take it down seventeen or eighteen notches. Donnie? Go to your coffee. Go. Shoo. Go on. Yes. Everything will be okay without you for five minutes. Leo? Breakfast is made, please help me serve it before this situation dissolves into a chaotic whirlwind of hilarity right in time for my parents to arrive. Wild and Shadow? After you are done eating, go find Mr. Jones and Michelangelo and negotiate for their safe return to the lair provided Mikey immediately gets to work on his comics. Donatello, Leo's not going to have Mikey with him on the ground for the commute so you need to decide whether to join him and leave me to man the security computer, or send him out alone. I'll call my parents to let them know."

"Her name is _Shadow_!?" Wildcard exclaimed, and looked down at the girl in question as everyone else started moving. "That's _so epic,_ one day you can be in a fight with ninjas or lawyers or accounting paperwork or whatever it is you end up doing for a job and your enemy can be like 'your tactics are impressive, young one, I must know your name' and after a short dramatic pause you'll be like 'I am Shadow,' and then theatrical music will literally start playing from nowhere because that is the most awesome conceivable name for anyone to have given to their child regardless of occupation or gender."

Shadow sniffed and moodily rubbed her face with an arm. She smudged her cameo paint a little. "Kids at school make fun of me."

"Oh that's not real," Wildcard said. "Nobody could be anything other than jealous of a name like Shadow, so they have to pretend it isn't awesome so that they can feel better about themselves, and then they have retarded backwards views of all reality, where they have to pretend completely boring stuff completes them. Just give a dramatic girly roll of your eyes at their dumb names like 'Jaqinta' and 'Melody' because _nobody,_ who disrespects the name 'Shadow' actually deserves to be friends with anyone _named Shadow._ They've just voided their coolness card automatically."

"Yeah?"

"Shell yeah. Give it here girlfriend, you're _awesome_."

"Casey's _WHERE!?_ " Mom shouted over the phone loud enough for them all to hear.

"I'm handling it, Mom," Sandro droned back as he got plates onto the table. "Hold on a second." He got the phone off his shoulder, flicked to camera, and snuck a perfectly timed picture of that hi-five Shadow finally decided she'd give Wild.

Donatello, who noticed the surreptitious photograph, raised a brow at him.

Sandro gestured at the girls. "What? We need photographs to document the very first moment either of these two have successfully spoken to 'a girl.' Not that, ya know, I think either of them are great role models for one another or anything, but _still_. It's a momentous occurrence, they didn't even arch their backs, or bite each other, or show off plumage and strut around like roosters or anything! _Weird_."

Leo actually lost composure in a snicker.


	87. Delegation Successful!

[Author's Note] Shadow's differences in character from the source material are intentional; her family setup is very different from the canons in which she's always been introduced. She doesn't have a mother to round out her life, and she doesn't have a Michelangelo living in her attic, either XD. That said, she still has a very loving father, whose insensitive locker room humor is accidentally getting adopted in the raw... S'okay Case, we forgive you :3

* * *

"My Dad's going to pwn Mikey," Shadow predicted as the two girls strolled through the sewers, their flashlights in hand.

"He won't even _catch_ him," Wildcard disagreed. "Mikey had his skateboard with him."

Sound carried pretty well once one got out of the protective insulative buffer surrounding the turtle lair, but the ambient air flow was also loud. They could hear some very distant commotion through the din of echoes, but right now everything just sounded haunted instead of informative.

"You'll see," Shadow intoned like she was the boss of knowing everything. "My dad is awesome at hunting ninjas."

"Ninety percent sure Mikey's only half ninja," Wild mused. "Other half is clown. Like Deadpool, only Chaotic Good instead of Neutral."

"What does that even mean?"

"Nothing important. Hey, explain this whole thing to me: Do Mikey and your dad work together?"

"Yeah. Mike's a turtle so he can't run the company cause no one can see him. Dad handles all that stuff, even the boring stuff like meetings and contracts, and all Mikey has to do is _draw_."

Wildcard thought it was unfair to use the word 'draw' like it was equivalent to eating potatoe chips. After her recent experiences with whittling, which hadn't turned out great, and knowing how long it took to apply makeup, for instance, she could imagine drawing was a hard job. Even if one accounted for talent, or a lifetime's experience of tacit knowledge, like Joker displayed when using seemingly random objects to create a perfect simulation of lip creases for Sandro's Halloween costume, everything took manhours. "It's a lot of work," Wild aid.

"He thinks it's _fun_." Shadow rolled her eyes, apparently oblivious to the contradiction between 'he thinks it's fun' and 'he's lazy.' Either the work was hard or it wasn't.

"Your dad doesn't seem like a salesman," Wildcard reflected. "Or a business magnate or negotiator." Mr. Jones came off as more of a construction worker who went bowling with the lads after work.

"He's fine!" The gleam in Shadow's eye suggested she was used to her dad being underestimated, and was proud of him, "April says the comics sell themselves, and that's kinda true, but Mikey _sucks_ at money," Shadow explained. "Dad is the tough guy who makes sure they don't get screwed. Mikey's so sensitive he started of working for like _nothing_ , and Dad fixed everything. Plus Mikey's dumb, so Dad has to help write the comic and do checks and make sure it makes sense and stuff."

"Nearly positive Mikey and Donnie have the same IQ and one of them's just a hyperactive Ne-dom," Wildcard mused to herself. "ENFP? Definitely an ENFP. But is Donnie an INTJ or an INTP? Huh! No wonder they come off like a power couple despite being siblings. It's like Marilla and Mathew Cuthbert for a new generation, only not. Wait I got lost, what were we talking about again?"

"You're kinda weird," Shadow said, eyeing her up and down like she was a gross piece of rotten seaweed.

Wildcard eyed this kid in bemusement. "You're kinda a bully," she said.

Shadow paused and scowled at her. "I'm not! You take that back!"

"You're pretty close to being a bully," Wild repeated, leaning over with a grin. Shadow was the only thing around here smaller than Wildcard. "Bullies make fun of people for being weird."

Shadow punched her in the arm. "I'm not! I beat up bullies!"

Wildcard punched her back. Much to her delight, Shadow didn't just recoil and start crying! Instead, the little girl squared her shoulders and lifted her little fists. Wildcard laughed at her. "You hit me again, I'll hit you harder! You call innocent people mean names and hit them when they don't agree with you. That's a bully!"

"That's not true! He _did_ do something wrong!"

"Okay, first of all? Mikey's not behind at work because he's lazy."

"He _is_ lazy!"

Wildcard leaned over, abusing her height since this was the only time she had it. "Sandro got grounded, and Mikey has been stressed out trying to help Sandro calm down. He's a good person who takes care of other people before taking care of himself, and you're a _bully_ for making fun of him."

Shadow stomped forward a step as if she was going to yell a reply, but nothing came to her, and her mouth was locked in a big frown.

"Second of all," Wildcard added, "You call people mean names. A person's degree of fruitiness can't be 'wrong,' it just sounds mean, that's like making fun of you or me for being blonde."

"Shut up, he acts like a girl!"

"Who cares!?" Wildcard demanded, leaning back and spreading her arms out wide. "Nothing's wrong with being a girl! You're a girl, I'm a girl, just because we don't understand other girls doesn't mean girlhood is inherently tarnished, and if Mikey wants to be a girl it just means he thinks you and me are cool!"

"No that's not what it means!"

Wildcard gave Shadow a _look_. Hands on her hips. Eyes half lidded. "You don't even know what 'fruit' actually means," she accused imperiously down to this little upstart.

Shadow punched at her again and Wildcard caught the wrist, hit the interior of the elbow, and shoved the little girl down to her knees.

"You hit me, I hit you, " Wild said, stepping over her with a big grin. "You and me _both_ beat up bullies."

Shadow scrambled back to her feet, fuming, and threw herself at Wild.

Wildcard sidestepped, and then tapped her shoulder. "Tag!" she yelled. "Don't worry, I'll let you catch me!"

"What!? No!" Shadow yelled back, but bolted after all the same. "I'm not playing!"

But by the time they'd tagged each other six or seven times, they were both squealing, giggling, and taunting, and it didn't matter that one of them was a jerk and the other one was crazy because those were not unreconcilable flaws, and neither of them was so bruised or jaded as to be unable to make new friends.

They crashed straight into Mr. Jones that way, taking a corner much to fast, and they looked up at his stormy (but softening) expression, and then at each other, and then busted out laughing.

"Mission half accomplished!" Wildcard fist-pumped as she leaned an elbow on Shadow's head and looked around. "Michelanggellooo!? We're here to help negotiate the terms of your surrender!"

"What?" Mr. Jones asked, looking between them both before half turning about and pointing upward with a middle finger. "Huh. He's in the pipes."

Wildcard and Shadow both pointed their flashlights upward but couldn't see anything.

"Sunshine!" Wild called. "It's necessary for you to come home before Sandro has a panic attack about things going wrong with the family meeting!"

"Meeting?" Shadow asked her.

"I haven't gotten the all-clear from April and Raphael yet," Wildcard explained back. "They're uber protective of their baby boy. Sunshine! I'll protect you from bodily and emotional harm on the condition I get to watch you draw! Hey. How many panels does he owe?"

"He's behind _pages_ ," Casey seethed.

"Holy Toledo, don't those take like days to finish?" Wild followed some artists online sometimes. "Does he just do the lines?"

"He does _everything,_ " Mr. Jones snarled. "Drafts, line, ink, color, lettering, every damn thing. Me and April managed to outsource shit like _twice_ and he pouted like someone'd kicked a puppy the whole damn time. And he's _behind_!"

"This is serious!" Wildcard gasped. Michelangelo had such a sloppy and eclectic personality, it had never once occurred to her that he'd be interested in the artistic process past the brainstorming and sketch stages. Apparently when it came to things that were 'his babies,' Orange could actually care a lot. "Mikey! Sunshine! Michelangelo! Angelcakes! _MOM!_ "

Orange popped in like an upside-down mole, unable to resist the call of his rent-a-child. "Yes dear?" he asked like a smiling fifties housewife.

Shadow actually busted out in a giggle, but then gave her father a confused and uncertain look. He reflected the same expression back at his daughter, as if neither of them was sure what the rules were with regards to how they ought to feel about Mikey responding to 'Mom.'

The momentarily distraction was good, because Mr. Jones had a hockey puck hidden in one fist, and Wildcard's future foresight indicated he actually could whip that hockey stick fast enough to _nail_ Mikey with the puck, which felt like it shouldn't have been possible for a normal middle-aged human dude but clearly was.

"Teach me how to ink!" Wildcard demanded.

Mikey hesitated. "Inking is really hard, I can't just-"

"You can redo every page I mess up!" Wildcard announced. "This is nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse for me to sit in solidarity beside you to keep you working, for hours, regardless of what the parents decide of my fitness as a companion for their son! Also my father is ashamed of my lack of interest in art, and will possibly bake you more food as a demonstration of thanks."

Mikey looked left. Mikey looked right. Mikey's whole face glowed with glee as he looked back to her, and he might as well have been a hyper excited puppy wagging its tail. "Okay! Deal!

"I think this means you're not supposed to hit him," Shadow whispered to her dad. "Next time?"

"Dammit," Mr. Jones huffed. "Okay, but only if he starts working _now_. NOW."

"Deal! Deal deal deal!" Mikey squealed, climbing across the pipes and dropping down beside him with a crumpled posture and a bashful expression. "I'm headed to work!" He sidled around Mr. Jones. "Right now!"

"You'll do it at the fucking kitchen table until you have enough done for me to take to the publishers as proof it's all coming!" Casey barked after him, hounding his steps. "The script's been set for two months, if I see you open an internet tab _one time-!"_

"Yes! Yes, okay! Don't hit me! Eek! Mini, come here, let me use you as a human shield! I have a child, you madman, don't hit innocent bystanders!"

* * *

When April O'Neil and Hamato Raphael finally managed to get in the door of their house, they looked as if they honestly expected the entire interior to be demolished, lights to be hanging from wires, TVs to be cracked, picture frames shattered and askew, and Michelangelo in the infirmary.

What they found, instead, was their entire family neatly gathered around the kitchen table, surrounded by paper, bristol board, scanners, comic books, color palettes, digital tablets, vegetable platters, lemonade glasses, and laptops. Casey was breathing down Michelangelo's neck and holding him at hockey point, but Casey also had a beer in hand and looked to be calming down and composing messages on his cellphone. Even Donatello was out of the lab, though the work materials scattered around his corner of the table looked to be different from everyone else's. He might have been there largely to make sure no technology was destroyed while on loan from him.

"This is hard," eight-year-old Shadow muttered from where she was filling in flat colors using a computer program by picking them out from already existing pages. "It just takes forever and there's so many parts."

"Pfft," Wild muttered as she looked repeatedly back and forward from a magazine to the bristol board in front of her. "You have Control-Z to undo stuff, Shadey, if I smudge or drop a single bead of ink, or if Mikey doesn't like a single line's thickness, I have to start over from the beginning. It's like waterproof mascara at it's finest."

"Yo by the way, I am totally amazed that hasn't happened yet," Mikey complemented with a grin her way. "You've got steady hands, Minimeme!"

"Work," Casey growled and jabbed Mikey in the shell with a hockey stick.

"Quick Mikey, pretend you're a Chinese gold farmer," Wild whispered. "Do you need Leo's straw hat?"

"I don't even know what she's talking about most of the time," Shadow apostrophed to the universe before looking to Sandro. "Your friend is weird."

"Yup," Sandro agreed.

"I told you," Leonardo said to them, his raised a hand to indicate Sandro, who was reviewing everyone else from above as he passed pages from one person to another. "He was very adamant today not be 'ruined.'"

Sandro turned towards towards them in surprise, and his focused expression transformed into a smile. "Mom! Dad! Hey, welcome home! Do you want some lemonade? We'e helping Mike and Mr. Jones not get sued for failing to produce deliverables."

"Now that would be an awkward court case," Mikey chirped, only to get jabbed by his taskmaster again.

"Raph! Howsit?" Casey greeted, sounding much happier than when addressing Mikey. "And, hey April, hope ya don't mind me stopping over, I was trying to catch this numb nuts off guard. Met the new girl!"

"Uncle Raphael!" Shadow exclaimed with great enthusiasm and waved.

"Hey Mr. and Mrs. Sandro's Parents!" Wild greeted as she twisted about in her chair and waved. "Do you need me? I'm doing the inking and Mikey says it's actually good enough to keep which makes this literally the proudest moment of my life because I am soooo inartistic!" Leo said something in the background to the affect of this all boding ill for the strict timing of family Ninjitsu lessons.

Raphael chuckled and April gave a grimace of 'oh isn't that nice casey' which definitely proved she and Donatello were spiritually related despite only being in-laws. "That's... that's fine, Ana," she said. "Can everyone just... give us a moment?"

Raphael and April both gave minimal eye contact to the rest of the crowd before turning their attention directly onto their son, and by the curious energy hanging around them and the grin building up on Raphael's face, they had some exciting news.

"Mom?" Sandro asked worriedly as she took his hands.

"We're opening a branch office in Jersey," she said with tremendous excitement, like she had just struck a World Series winning home run in the ninth inning of the game. "It's going to be in December, we're getting it out in time for the First Quarter of the new year and right in time to take advantage of feelings towards the holiday season! Our timing couldn't have been more perfect, we managed to draw up poll data and budget numbers to prove the employees would prefer this to a bonus and pay raise. My new CEO _smashed_ through a meeting with the New York Times this week like they were ants, which was honestly the final proof I've needed since the merger that he could handle things without direct supervision. It's all going to _work!"_

Sandro looked rapidly between the two of them, seeking translation of what was still largely in work-speak.

"We're moving home," Raphael said, reaching down to tousle his son's bandanna. "Both of us. Right in time fah Christmas."


	88. It's Super Effective!

" _Hell_ yeah!" Casey Jones was the first to respond to this stunning proclamation. "It's about _time_! I've been dyin' to crack some heads for eight—!"

April shot him a look that promised a long and gruesome death if Casey dragged Raphael out on a vigilante justice spree for old time's sake.

"—uh, I mean, rooftop barbecues, sports games, and are back in town! _Yes!_ Jesus, you guys ain't been home since Shadow was _born,_ Raph! _Woo,_ yeah!" Fist pump. "Eh?" He looked at Mikey. "Hey, _get to work!_ " Swat!

Mikey wasn't the only floored person in the room, not by a longshot. "You're coming home?" Sandro echoed the words. "For how long?"

"Sandro, hon, we're coming home to stay,"April said to him, her face glowing. "I'm the boss, aren't I? If I want to operate a branch out of Jersey till I manage to make it profitable, then damn it that _is_ up to me, isn't it?" She was _so_ hopeful this was exactly what he'd wanted, and she was waiting for him to confirm.

"A-are you going to live down here?" his voice cracked. "Or...?"

"Kinda both for now! We'll still need an apartment topside for cover appearances," his mom explained swiftly. "But I want to come home every evening if it's possible, so we're going to work on figuring out how to do that without setting off any alarm bells with the Foot or rival news corporations. Either way, your father will definitely be able to make it to ninjitsu practice daily."

She *had* listened. She was supporting his ninjitsu practice, and his time with his dad. Sandro had to clap down hard on all the emotion welling up in front of him, because for he was not going to start crying, nope.

"Ah'm thinkin' if Leo's willin' ta trade shifts with me, I can actually be home durin' da day," Red Turtle explained. "Depends on how much he's in love with his patrol schedule, or, ya know, whether we try ta kill each other aftah the first week after not sharing a house fah years."

"That is _exactly_ what is going to happen," Donatello droned nasally. "Except for the part where you think you're going to last a full week."

Raphael shrugged almost smugly, and shot Purple a cocky wink of agreement.

"Why just Leo!?" Mikey demanded. "Let's all help!"

"Ha!" Raphael whirled on him. "Aftah I kicked da shit outta ya last time fah getting distracted guard'in _mah wife_!?"

"That was twelve years ago! I'm older!"

"You can't even draw on a regulah schedule!" Raphael thundered. The thwack of a hockey stick agreed.

Wildcard got out of her seat, leaving ink and bristol board behind. She hurried up to Sandro's side and looked up at his parents, her hands clasped over her mouth. For a second she was silent, which probably meant she was exploding internally with things. Then she asked in half a whisper, "Does this mean there are going to be tiny turtles?"

"What? Oh." April appeared surprised by the question, and Raphael quickly waved his hands from behind her, because apparently their foremost goal in all of this really had been to reunite with Sandro. "We'll talk about that some other time."

Wildcard looked to Sandro, apparently not at all put-off by the answer she'd received, her eyes smiling visibly despite the hands over her mouth. Then she stretched out her arms, grinning with all her teeth, and she grabbed hold of him, giggling and hopping and hugging on him. "You did it!" she leaked joy, unable to keep it all inside or wait until the two of them were alone. "You did it, and they're coming home!"

Okay. Sandro had definitely started crying. Crying and smiling and possibly giggling. He was scared of what he'd do if anything around him changed within the next sixty seconds, or if anyone tried to speak. Maybe he'd just start bawling like a three year old for no understandable reason, which was totally not okay for a fourteen year old dude his size. He grabbed hold of his sibling and hugged her against him like a teddy-bear, anchoring himself emotionally in place with her extra weight, letting her be thrilled on both their behalves so that he didn't crack open like a dam. He was giggling and maybe sniffling into her.

Donatello had stood up, and only now did Sandro realized he'd chosen to work in the kitchen so as to prevent himself from getting too deep into his work and losing track of time; he'd made sure he'd be here for Sandro when Raphael and April arrived. Still, Donnie looked confused what to do with his reaction. Mom and Dad seemed concerned. And Leo, uh, well Leo was probably more alarmed by the giggle-crying than everyone else all put together.

But Michelangelo, Mikey, he shoved his chair backwards into Casey, took a very hard hit from that hockey stick upon his shoulder in exchange, and made it to the family group just in time to throw his arms around April, Raphael, Sandro, and Wildcard all together.

"Dis moment is sooo preeecciouuuss!" Mikey wailed with a giant squeeze, successfully convincing everybody that it was simply time to hug on their loved ones and enjoy five minutes of intensified familyhood, regardless of the presence of the tiny blonde child with the white bandanna who'd somehow ended up in the middle of it all.

Mr. Jones had to be temporarily kept from interrupting, by an unexpected Donatello/Leonardo tag team from left field. One apparently took out his legs and the other managed to clasp him in a head-lock.

"Thank you," Sandro mumbled blearily into his parents. " _Thank you_."

* * *

Once Michelangelo was back under the whip (under the hockey stick?) and the adults and children had split into different groups to talk, Casey cracked open two beers and got them into Raphael and April's hands. He took a long look at Donatello like he'd forgotten Donatello was there, and then shoved a Smirnoff Ice into his hand.

"Exactly what have you handed me?" Donatello asked in monotone, sniffing at the mouth of the bottle.

"Eh, you'll like it. You like all the girl drinks," Casey reassured, looking to Raphael. "So, you guys-"

"Taunts the single-dad, six-foot-four, eligible bachelor who still has all his hair and actually lives around women but still can't manage to hold onto one," Donatello remarked, taking a swig.

"Hey!" Casey punched his arm. "I was nearly marr-!" He blinked. "Fuck you!" He busted out laughing. "You're an ice cold fucker, you know that?"

Donatello gave a gracious little bow and maybe a sly grin.

Raphael laughed and April smirked at their antics. The two of them answered Casey's an Donatello's questions about the Jersey apartment, till Mikey tried to interject something and Casey yelled over his shoulder:

"Ya gonna regret it if I have to come back there!"

"Eek! Drawing! Drawing!" And he was, at a frantic pace, likely agitated at being excluded from the conversation.

April grinned till the sight of Leonardo, hovering in the back of the conversation and making no eye contact, gave her pause. He stood there like this conversation had nothing to do with him and he was just politely listening in. As if his closest and yet most diametrically opposed sibling wasn't finally coming home again, with all the craziness, complications, and fraternal joy that ought to entail. April grimaced, guilt and sympathy churning in her stomach.

Sometimes she wondered if this was her fault. For taking Raphael. If she could have stopped it from happening; if she was to blame because she couldn't protect herself alone.

Out of the four brothers, Leonardo had changed the most as an adult. Fourteen year old Leo had been gawkish and bright-eyed, prone to mistakes, enamored with his idols, and very hard to take seriously despite always being so incredibly serious. What Raphael and Mikey had laughingly called his 'dramatic one-liners' had been incredibly lame (and April remembered them and would testify the same). But, back then, the facade of control would inevitably come down, and he'd be throwing banter and punches around with the rest of them. He'd never been loud, but growing up smashed against fast-thinking Donnie, fast-talking Mikey, and fast-acting Raphael, in a tiny hovel in the sewer, had necessitated he develop his verbal repertoire.

By contrast, thirty-year-old Leonardo was almost unnaturally quiet. Quiet, polite, and much easier to take seriously; none of that control was a facade anymore. If you were, for example, kidnapped in a room full of hallucinogens, Leo was the one you wanted coming in after you. His willpower and focus were ironclad, and his ninjitsu was in some new state transcending 'flawless.' He was the only one of the four who could hold up an impenetrable defense against all three of his brothers in the dojo, and he had, without question, grown into a sharp tactician and dependable leader—In times of danger, at least. Peacetime Leo tended to defer his family members.

Helpful, Leo was definitely helpful.

Days like these though, April wished for the Leo of their childhood back. There was always so much distance between them and him, like he was a fading photograph, like he could disappear one day, and the family'd just go on the same as if he'd never existed.

(He had once.)  
(And they sort of had.)  
(They never talked about those two years, as if refusing to acknowledge them could somehow stop it from ever happening again.)

 _Should I have given up everything, my career, the company, Mutant Rights activism, and come home the moment Donatello managed to start bringing in money?_

After her conversation with Sandro, April O'Neil wasn't sure of a lot of her life choices anymore.

A flitter of motion caught her attention and she leaned back to see better around Leo's shell. The three children were about halfway down the hallway and laughing with eachother.

Shadow was there, and looked quite engaged in the conversation, but the center of the group was definitely the two older children, who were shoving and bantering with one another wearing eager expressions and an aura of energy. Ana looked like a coach lauding up her boxer after an award winning match, pushing his chest and shoulders with a big grin on her face, and bouncing through postures of excitement. The two bumped elbows and forearms, jostled each other, and hi-fived with a loud smack. They were rough with each other, rough like boys.

April stared at her son, whom she'd grown so used to thinking of as 'quiet' and 'moody.' Anastasia was a regular chatterbox, but Sandro would butt-in, loud and verbose to compete with her. His expression was sly and sarcastic, with his eyes half lidded and a big grin on his face. April stared. Stared as she saw, instead, a fourteen year old turtle in a blue bandanna.

 _'I can handle her,'_ her son had said, _'And I like that about myself.'_

"They do kinda come off like brother n' sister," Red commented from above her head, and April jumped slightly to the realization she'd zoned out and Raph had noticed what she'd been staring at.

"The hell'd you find that chick?" Casey asked with a grin back towards the kids. "She's a regular piece of work, huh?" He said it like it was a good thing.

"Sandro bumped into her while sneakin' topside," Raphael explained. "Full disclosure, Case, the story we got is she jumped three Foot on his tail and killed em, all of them."

Casey gave a low appreciative whistle.

 _Of course that's Casey's reaction to a major safety concern._ April sighed rubbed her face. To be entirely fair, this had pretty much been her own husband's exact reaction, and Casey had the luxury of knowing the turtle family was already allowing her around their house, which probably made her 'okay' in his book.

"Her father's also got some kind of history, only thing we know's it ain't with the Foot. Might have a skeleton or two in da closet. Still seems like a decent guy."

"Who doesn't?" Casey gave a big grin and shrug, and then gestured to Donatello. "Along with tissue samples, DNA..."

Donatello snorted. "Not a closet, and no complete skeletons." He glanced to Leo. "Do you have any insight to share?" That sounded like a tossed bone or fishing line, as if Donatello was trying to include his brother.

Leonardo had rejoined them with a fresh cup of tea. "The children will be starting warm ups soon."

"Ooh, _right_ ," Raphael recalled, with a quirk of his mouth, a half shrug, and a lift of his bottle. "Ah'ma have ta finish this fast then."

"Can't it wait an hour or so?" Donatello asked Leo with bland annoyance.

Leo shot Donatello a tolerant look. "Sure," Blue unexpectedly agreed. "How long should I tell the energetic children to sit on their hands waiting for _you_ to be ready for Ninjitsu practice, Donnie-Sensei?"

"Are you trying to start something Mr. Situationally Oblivious Statue?" Donatello deadpanned back at him. "Because I am on a streak right here."

"Pft," Leo was surprising them just by _talking_ , much less inflecting and rolling his eyes. "Says the turtle who has been in 'robot mode' all week." Air quotes were had.

April nearly guffawed. Where had this just come from? She glanced at Raphael to make sure this was strange.

" _Excuse_ me?" Donatello's eyes narrowed as he set his drink on the table.

"I am sorry, that was uncalled for," Leo yielded apologetically, in a tone of deference they'd grown accustomed to, only to straighten back up and gesture wide with his tea. "After all, the children have only been praying at the shrine each and every day, and perhaps had one or two panic attacks Michelangelo managed to expertly foil. But what am I saying this for, surely someone so _communicative_ and _observant_ has noticed all the damaged furniture and new Playstation controllers. It is not like I had to give a young boy any awkward pep talks late Tuesday night, or somesuch."

"You-! Just." Donatello's accusatory finger point felt limp. "What?"

Leo shrugged, pivoted, and called out towards the dojo: " _Kinpōgekun; sonaetesuru! Kyō no kunren wa bō o shiyō shimasu!"_

 _"Bō-o-shiyō—?"_ they heard. "Oh! _Hai Sensei! Sorera o shutoku_ _-_ um _..._ _sh-shimasu!"_ she tagged Sandro and the two of them bolted off one right after the other.

Poor Donnie's eyes widened. "Her Japanese is not that good," he asserted, confused. His eyes narrowed at Leo. "Not even close, that little _She-Casey_ has the academic focus of a _gnat_."

"You call her _what!?_ " Casey busted out laughing.

Leonardo glanced back at them with wide eyes. "Oh? I have been meaning to ask: How have her lessons been this week, Donnie-sensei?" he inquired innocently. "How is her homework? Did she not have a test yesterday?"

Donatello recoiled to a very stiff and bristled posture, rapidly doing mental calculations, his Adam's apple bobbing. April was instantly quite positive Donatello had forgotten and worked clear through those lessons.

"Hmm." That was all Leo said about the matter, 'hmm!' and then he proceeded off to the dojo, leaving bemused persons in his wake.

"Da hell?" Raphael and April asked simultaneously, one of them without the accent.

Mikey pointed after his shell, and gaped up at them all, and accused, "Leo used _words!_ " which was pretty much a summary of what they were all thinking.

"It's super effective," Donatello mumbled dazedly.

"Psssseeeewww," Casey made a power-down sound and waggled a thumb downward. "Ppbblbth. There goes Einstine's 'streak!''"

"The kids have been _praying_?" April asked. "For what? What happened?"

"The five-hour limit," Mikey said, dropping his arm. "Sandro's going nuts and Mini's not much better. I tried to keep them busy but there's only one me and there's two them..."

"Wait, you what?" Raphael asked.

"I went out boarding with Mini," Mikey explained, and frowned at the expressions he got. "They're lonely, Raph, they don't have any friends, and I'm the one who has to bring her away from the house and look at her _lost_ expression like she doesn't know what the point of the rest of the day is. And Sandro was a time bomb, he'd be smiling all broken as she left and then mauling something the second she was out the door, either that or balancing the family checkbook and filling out an hourly planner, he was getting some hilarious weird mix of ferociously neurotic and temperamental at the same time; he's got a lot of us all in him, it's super cute sometimes. I did ask Leo to talk to him, he hung out with Donnie in the lab after that, so I think that was a little better? Why? What's he supposed to do? Video games?"

"Hey, _you_ ," Casey said with a point. "Points for sappy shit, but you are gonna regret it if I have to come over there." He looked at Raphael and jabbed him with a beer bottle. "By the way, I don't care if they're snogging on the couch when you're gone, telling your son he's not allowed to have his only his friend is kinda low for the guy whose dad never did that to _him_. But they're not, ask Don, man, that was funny! Late bloomer there, that's for sure! Also: Trust issues, you're supposed to give kids a chance to prove you trust them, or something, I read about it."

"You _read_?" Raphael demanded.

Casey sighed. "Look, we were at my Mom's, I'd had the refried beans, she only had this 'Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul' book, or something, I was gonna be in there for awhile, I did what I could."

Raphael was quiet a brief moment. "Beans can do that to a person," he accepted.

"Sure can," Casey agreed solemnly, rubbing at his backside as if in memory.

It was hard to receive emotionally poignant parenting advice from a man who was discussing his own bowel movements.

* * *

 **Disclaimer: Author does not speak Japanese.**

備えてする! Sonaetesuru! Prepare!

今日の訓練は棒を使用します. Kyō no kunren wa bō o shiyō shimasu! Today's lesson will be with with staves.

棒-を使用-? Bō-o-shiyō-? (She is sounding out the word she did not understand. When she says 'Bo' to herself, she realizes Leo must mean a staff, as she knows Donatello's weapon is called a 'Bo.')

それらを取得します Sorera o shutoku- um... sh-shimasu! "I'll get them (the staves) out!"


	89. But Mikey Did It!

"He _is_ crying!" Shadow realized, disgusted.

"Oh shush, you meanie," Wildcard cooed affectionately as she cupped her brother's face and wiped the tears away from under his mask. "He can do anything he wants, he's _perfect._ "

"I was trying so hard not to embarrass Dad in front of Mr. Jones," Sandro groaned, shoulders bowed. "Last thing I need is to soak another bad mood from 'im already."

"Well, to be fair," Wildcard drawled, "no 'best friend' of your father would dare mock your masculinity if he wasn't fully prepared for your father to turn around and beat him senseless."

"Heh. Probably true." Sandro smiled at her. Then he grinned and picked her up by the waist.

Wildcard yelped as he lifted her up over his head and spun her around. Both of them started laughing.

Sandro plopped her back on her feet, and then blinked. "I just realized we didn't talk to them about you at all." His eyes widened at her. "What if they don't change their minds about the five-hour-thing?"

"Oh _noooooo_ , I _knew_ we forgot something!"

Sandro face-palmed.

"Well, don't panic!" she advised, raising both hands to dam the flow of anxiety. "First of all we've got your uncles in there as our representatives, and second of all there'st two hours of awesome cathartic exercise to look forward to before we have to talk to your mom! And your dad's not having an asshole day!"

"Right. Right!" Sandro cleared his throat, and wiped his face with the back of his hands to finish the job of tear-dispersal Wild had started, and then held up his hand. "Let's show off some real fighting to this disgusted little brat we've got making faces at us."

"Ooh, I'm in!" Wild grabbed that hand in a fierce elbows-touching hi-five. "Let's be stylish but brutal; and we need to work on your quick thinking!"

"Is that supposed to be an _insult,_ Loudmouth? Because I'm still pretty sure my Ninjitsu _owns_ yours!"

* * *

"Yo, Leo," Raphael caught hold of his shell halfway to the dojo, wanting to talk to him halfway between wife and kids and maybe without any of them overhearing.

His brother twitched slightly, turning to face him as if just a bit startled. "Yes?"

"Got a question ta ask ya about how far ya takin' all this." He jerked his chin at the dojo. "April needed ta be able ta muster a basic self defense, or maybe help out in a pinch, dat's why Master Splinter taught her the basics. But that ain't what it sounded like ya meant when ya was talkin' about pickin' a student off the street, back in Northhampton."

Leo shifted, thinking back. "I likened it to Foot Clan recruitment," he recalled.

"Yeah. Ya did. So what's the end game? Ya just makin' sure she's got the skills ta keep her cool if ninjas come lookin' fah bait?"

"I am training a future Hamato Clan ninja," Leo said. "The same as you."

Yeah, Raphael had figured it was like that, but hearing it said like that was new. Their 'clan' was a tight-knit family of four brothers, wasn't jack shit like the Foot. "Ya really think she gonna be able ta keep up with him?" Raph prodded, resisting the idea on damn principle. "With _us_? She ain't got the raw power, the aggressive healin' factor. Ain't a _turtle._ "

"Are you expressing concern?" Leo inquired with a thoughtful sniff, "or something more in the vein of racism?"

"Ya know what I mean perfectly fine, _Junior,_ " he shoved his brother's plastron, and at least got the satisfaction of him paying attention again and not drifting off to scholar mode. "If ya wrong about this kid, you're drivin her to one hell of an early expiration date. Can she keep up?" There. That sounded like a real question that time.

His older bro lifted his chin. Looked fucking _imperious_. "If you put them on an open city," Leo said, "it is _Sandro_ who will not keep up."

"Don's right," Raphael rolled his shoulders with a crack, "ya actin' like ya wanna start somethin."

"Perhaps later," Leo suggested with a glance towards the dojo. "I said _staves..._ That does not sound like ninjitsu warm ups."

* * *

"I said _staves_ ," Leo remarked dryly to the air. Raphael elbowed him to shut him up so they could watch, maybe catch a line of dialog or two with the kids not knowing they was there.

Sandro bolted past, kicked off the wall to get air, and slammed his kama down on a star, spiking into the ground. Another one went flying over his head.

"Missed, slowpoke!" his Mouse shouted.

 _"THROW ANOTHER!"_ roared Sandro, charging at her. Slam, slice, thunk, he did the same kick-off the opposite wall, and this time he hit both, one right after the other.

"Do that again!" Shadow cheered from the sidelines.

Zing, zing, zing; star after star came flying across the dojo as both children darted back and forth, half chasing each-other like this was tag, half playing a game of volleyball with steel weaponry. It felt familiar, but like in a nostalgic way, and Raphael frowned and tilted his head, trying to figure out what felt 'off.'

Slash, thud, roll, slice. Sandro's Mouse hit the rear wall at a run, with him on her heels, and as she kicked off and flipped, she landed solidly with her hands on his shell, and flipped off him again.

"Situational awareness!" Mouse shouted like a taunt, but Leo bristled, and Raphael noticed dojo carpet might be posed to trip someone.

"I was expecting you to throw a knife with ya damn-!"

"Feet!"

" _Exactly!_ "

" _Sandro!_ " She threw herself against his plastron with an aghast expression that didn't match the situation, and the boy barely, _barely,_ got his kama up out of the way before she impaled herself.

"Gah. Okay. Listening. What?" Frozen mid-step over her, Sandro followed her gaze down.

She kicked aside a curl of the dojo carpet, revealing a throwing star lodged in the floor right under where he'd been about to step.

Ooh.

The kids looked back up at each other.

"Well _this_ hasn't happened since we stopped playing in beer-bottle strewn construction sights!" the Mouse commented.

"Oh God, I would have been laid up for another _week_ ," Sandro moaned, dropping his kama to his side with a flop, and then backing up to squat down and fiddle with the star. "Like I haven't been miserably unpleasant to hang around _enough_ lately. Yow. That's in there solid."

"Reminds me of the time I lost a star and it turned up in your shell," she agreed, drawing out a switchknife from her sleeve and prying the star out of the woodwork. "Except you're heavy, you'd have jammed it an inch into your heel or lost a _toe_."

Sandro coughed a laugh and then grinned at her. "I can _totally_ see you running up to Donnie with a severed appendage to ask him inane questions."

"Oh absolutely," she agreed, folding up the switchknife to tuck it away. "'Donnie-senpaaaiii," she whined nasally, holding up the star as if it were an amputated toe, "does this need an icceeepaccck?' Bonus points if it's my own limb and I'm gratuitously bleeding at the moment."

Sandro slapped her back with a laugh. "Thanks for the save."

"No problem, Rapunzel, I'd never let anything happen to you."

"Aaannnd this is the part where you die."

"Hee! If you catch me."

Both kama hit the ground and Sandro dived her, and the two of them went rolling in a bundle of fists, shrieks, and laughs. On a floor studded with sharp objects. Shadow had clearly been told to stay off to the side while the two of them were throwing metal around, but now she clambered to her feet and looked like she might jump in.

Raphael placed his hands on his hips and looked over at his bro. "We got our work cut out fah us."

"Truly, the world has never seen ninjitsu trainees as focused and fearsome as these," Leo agreed.

"Shadow, BAMF Soul Sister! I have a plan!" Mouse shouted.

"Maybe I'm on his side!" Shadow hollered.

 _"Ha!"_ overlapped with Mouse's, "Cue dramatic manga betrayal!"

"Wait, what was your plan?!"

"Give him a big, wet, _kiss!_ Right on the ear!"

"EWWWW!" overlapped with, "DO YOU WANT TO DIE, WILD!?"

"Oh fine, I'll do it myself-"

Sandro decked her, and then got kicked right upside the jaw in retaliation, and he wasn't gentle about keeping a hold on her till the stars stopped. Shadow's eyes widened and she stared as both older kids went down in a downright fight, punching blocking, twisting limbs, elbowing soft points, roaring, taunting, cussing.

"Oh, _hi_ Sensei!" Mouse greeted with her cheek crushed into the ground in front of them. "I misplaced the staves!"

"Dad!" Sandro hesitated from where he was trying half-successfully to wrestle his Mouse down with sheer weight. After a second of panic, he brightened hopefully. "Can I have two more minutes to kill her, please?" he asked with complete innocence.

Raphael blinked. _Uh._ Sweatdrop. _Leeeooo? Help me out here._

"I do deserve it," Mouse commented objectively.

"I wouldn't be trying to kill you if you didn't deserve it," Sandro admonished with crazily absurd civility which Raphael would have never possibly managed in his position. Like he was British, and critiquing tea with a monocle. 'I dare say ole gal, what did you think I was punching you _for?_ '

"Words were said, bluffs were called, relationship homeostasis is being restored," Mouse agreed conversationally from the carpet, one eye already swelling.

"Yeah," Sandro confirmed matter-of-factly, with a brief pause before adding, "through aggravated homicide." Raphael had to not laugh, because _that_ kinda sounded familiar.

"Please refrain from murdering your sibling until after practice," Leonardo droned, God bless the boring stick-up-his-ass. "I am going to set out fresh fruit at the shrine and betime I have finished praying, every single shuriken is to be dug out of my carpets and walls. And from that bonsai you nearly murdered on the left. Shadow, please remain seated on the side if you wish to watch."

"Aww," complained Shadow, and "Yes, Uncle," Sandro complied with a heavy huff and a roll of his head, but Mouse popped up with a, "Hai Sensei!" fresh as a daisy. She blew raspberries back at Sandro, who picked up his kama and mimed and mouthed, 'I will kill you' using a kama, which of course made it hilariously over-the-top looking.

"A'right tiger," Raphael muttered in amusement, tousling that black bandanna as he came into the room. "Cool ya jets, got a perfectly her-sized punching bag in the back. S'good practice fah da real thing, keeps it fresh that way."

Sandro blinked, off balance for a sec, but then beamed up at him.

* * *

"Donnniee-senpaaaii!" Wildcard called to them as she exited the dojo, probably before practice had even properly started.

"Ah. Right on time." Donatello turned on the couch.

She hurried up with big puppy-dog eyes and announced at an unrelenting pace better befitting a child Shadow's age: "My face hurts, Shadow says it's killing her, I laughed and laughed and laughed, Raphael said I'm definitely Mikey's child, is that a good thing?"

"You never go light on the adrenaline, do you?" Donatello mused, as he took her chin and turned her face slightly to see the swelling that was threatening to close her eye.

Casey nearly choked on his beer. He leaned forward in concern. "What the hell happened to _you_?"

"Oh Sandro _decked_ me," she said low and conspiratorially with a wide grin and smiling eyes.

Casey looked at April in confusion. Casey's mama had raised him never to hit a girl, which was possibly why April's willingness to knock him on his rear end had left him less-than-metaphorically lovestruck for a few years. Or whatever the Casey-equivalent of 'lovestruck' was. "He-?"

"-Decked her," Donatello agreed, feeling over her head with both hands. Probably for concussions!

"Wooorrttthhh!" Wildcard sang, throwing both arms in the air.

"Alright," Donatello got up with a tolerant sigh, "sit at the kitchen table for a minute. I'm going to dress it with a compress and see if I can't get it on the mend by lunch."

"Ooh, can you make me look like a pirate!?" she hoped, following along beside him, taking about three strides to his one.

"Dad!" Shadow darted out of the hallway and tackled Casey where he was sitting. "Can I learn Ninjitsu!?"

Casey blinked. Uh. Sweatdrop.

"Ooh," April sucked in a breath between her teeth, "bad timing on the request, hon," she said with a sympathetic pat on the girl's head. "Try asking again in about ten minutes, that's about the duration of your father's short term memory."

"Yow! I'm gonna need some sunscreen next time I come here," Casey winked at her. "Ape's too hot!"

"She is _married_!" Donatello whirled around to exclaim.

"Donnie-senpai," the kid scolded, "this is just how Mr. Jones asserts stereotypical masculine social dominance over you by baiting you into acting like Mrs. O'Neil's gay friend and then acting smug about it. You _tooottally_ shouldn't fall for it, you're way too smart for that."

Donatello's shoulder's dropped and his eyes widened, and he looked down at the child at his side. She came up to about his hip.

Casey blinked rapidly. "What?"

"I'm only saying this because if time travel was a thing I'd one day totally date sixteen-year-old-you, so as your hypothetical future time traveling girlfriend from the past, it's my duty to make sure everyone knows exactly where you belong on the ranking system of desirable males."

"What?" Casey repeated.

Donatello stared at her like she was a moron that he'd decided to tolerate anyway (Casey knew that expression) but like he still needed time to process all his regrets. Then he looked at Mikey, who _wasn't working again_ and had turned around in his chair! "Don't you _dare_ tell her time travel is a thing," Don said.

"Time travel's a thing, Mini!" Mikey replied with a big grin a thumb up. "We've got a portal set up for it in the lab! I say go for it!"

"Okay, Sunshine just called my bluff," Wildcard admitted without missing a beat, giving anyone to protest frivolous usage of time machines, or leaving time to contemplate whether she was actually hitting on an adult for some reason. "This family needs to seriously start telling me stories, because that sounds like an amazing story right there. Mikey!" she hopped over to take a seat in the kitchen so Don could go get those medical supplies. "How's work? Show me!"

" _Kinpōgekun?"_ A ninjitsu instructor was in search of his student.

Donatello let out a beleaguered moan. "I've got it Leo," he said, headed to the needle room. "Her depth perception's going to be prepared for lessons. She wants to be a pirate."

"Shit don't stay quiet with her around, does it?" Casey realized. "Does she _have_ a name, or does everybody call her something different?"

"She's _kooky,_ " Shadow had apparently decided, with a laugh. "Uncle Mikey?" she went into the kitchen, and Casey really did stare, because apparently his daughter was apologizing to Michelangelo. For... something. A hug happened.

Casey looked at April. April shook her head with a 'I have no idea' expression and shrugged big. She took another sip of her beer.

"What does 'homeostasis' mean?" Leo could be heard to ask Donnie.

* * *

After ninjitsu practice had completed for the day, April was knocked a little off-kilter when Sandro joined them in the kitchen for lunch with Raphael in tow, shaking heat out of his own shirt and looking slicked in sweat. Sandro said:

"Wild's in the shower so don't anyone just walk in. Dibs on being next."

(Don't panic, mom.) It took April a moment to calm down about naked teenagers of different genders both using the same shower. Showering after two hours of hard athletic activity made perfect sense. Perfect sense. Especially because she had the luxury of having a turtle for a son, and the turtles could waltz around naked and not show off a thing. (Stop thinking!) Raphael shared a glance with her that suggested he was also trying not to panic. Somehow that made her want to laugh instead.

"Um, Sandro," she broached with a smile. "Maybe it's a good time to talk about some things?"

Sandro paused. "Uh, can I eat first?" he asked. "I'll be uh, less snippy..."

"Okay," she said. "But it-it's not bad. Raphael and I have been trying to work through some of your requests and suggestions, and we _think_ we might have some ideas for... for trips topside, for you."

Her son blinked. "What... _kind_ of trips?" he asked as Raphael got them both lunch.

"Well some of them are things I'd actually like you to do for us in exchange," April explained. "One of those things is that if you really are going to focus on Ninjitsu, we'd like to take you to visit Jean Gray's School for 'Gifted Children' again for one of their not-so-open 'open days.' The purpose isn't to try and pressure you into anything! I was... hoping it would be something fun to do, an excuse to get out of the sewer, and it would give you access to all the information you need to know about schooling options for mutant children and... if you decided that this was something you wanted... well it would be a way to meet other kids. Kids who are- uh, well, not exactly like you, but mutant kids."

"Is that... safe?" Sandro asked slowly. "I mean, if I'm such a big secret from the Foot and all..."

"The kids at Gray's are boarded on campus," Raphael explained. "Anyone older than eighteen's in the X-Men just to be on the premises. Basically the trick is you won't be seen by anybody whose gonna leave those walls before you're old enough to be no secret anymore."

Sandro blinked. "All of them? They never leave?"

"Yeah not all of em, but sorta. It's about pickin' the time frame, and we're cozy enough with Old Man Xavier and Ms. Gray ta ask for a carefully set up visit. Ya don't appreciate it cause ya got no frame of reference," Raphael explained, "but ain't many mutant families like ours, what hold stable together. Lotta mutants are sterile on top of it, no matter what was scrambling with their genes, so dere's only so many second-gen kids ta boot."

"You've been once before," Donatello mentioned. "You don't remember?"

"I remember hiding under Dad's tail begging not to be abandoned with strangers, and listenin' to a bunch of people talk about how cute I was," Sandro admitted. "I was shorter then."

Raphael coughed a laugh. "Yeah, ah, I think we all might have been biased against the boardin' school idea even though we knew we had ta check it out."

"We were torn," Donatello suggested. "There were _so many_ children your own age, and we kinda figured you'd love it there, but... Well, you wouldn't have been home much."

"I do not blame anybody for my upbringing," Sandro said with a raise of both hands. "I did not and do not want to go live with strangers. Take that off your list of doubts and/or regrets."

April chuckled. "Alright, but you're right you're getting older and many kids do go away from home for _college,_ which is what we're talking about now! I know you want to pursue ninjitsu, and Raphael has made it very clear he's on your side. So, as a compromise, I'd like you to be armed with all the knowledge and student handbooks and testing systems and so forth that you'll have available to you if you ever decide you want something _in addition to_ ninjitsu. It's not to push anything on you! In fact, we were hoping it'd be just the opposite, that we could have some fun going to the school, learning how their programs work, meeting some kids your own age, and enjoying their massive, multi-acre campus outside in daytime... And and I think Donnie should come because he's going to be as giddy as a toddler in a toy store surrounded by actual classrooms. What do you think?"

Sandro swallowed, thinking about this for a little. He opened his mouth as if to say something, reconsidered, and smiled a little. "Okay," he said. "Cool."

Score!

"The open-day thing probably wouldn't be until spring. We had other ideas too!" April hastily added. "One was attending a convention, so we could take advantage of cosplay for you and for Raphael."

Sandro was waiting for something, and April was pretty sure she knew what.

"And the other... we're still not sure about, but we're thinking about maybe a day outing with Anastasia and Mr. Hamilton...? Raphael says he's willing as long as Casey tags along in his place."

Casey sat up at attention. "I'm in!" he confirmed. "The son of my friend is my friend, or... something like that! Right?" Sandro grinned, and April knew she'd pitched correctly.

"Where at?" Sandro asked.

"Ya got any suggestions?" Raphael nudged him.

"The Bronx Zoo," Sandro said, without even having to think, earning several startled looks. "Hey, I got robbed a normal childhood, and I wanna see lions and gorillas like every other five year old in this country. Also they have komodo dragons."

"This has been on ya list of things ta do?" Raphael asked, confused.

"Yeah, back when Mikey found out about me sneaking topside he took a few days to tell Donnie. So Wild and I were kinda filling out a bucket list," Sandro confessed. "I told her about the zoo and were thinking of taking a bus across the Hudson to get there. I seem ta remember noticin' the closing hours and deliriously entertaining the notion of showing up at Channel 8 right afterward, while Mom was getting off work, and just being like 'Hey, this is my new friend, will you take us to see a musical?' and seeing how long it took Mom to realize what had just happened. Figured the seats couldn't be much worse than a movie theater... I was panicking a lot at the time, had a lot of excess imagination energy goin' on."

"Yeah right," Casey snorted. "Like any guy actually ever wants to see _a musical_."

"Someone needs the educational experience of watching _Chicago,_ " Donatello decided.

"Pop. Six. Squish," Mikey said with a growing grin.

"Cicero," Sandro agreed.

"He had it coming," Leo observed from where he was getting fresh tea.

"You two were taking buses around?" April asked, concerned.

"Sure, I went along with a lot of stuff if her plan was sound," Sandro said. "That one just involved magazines and newspapers. Uh." His face grew hesitant. "Is it okay if I talk freely about this? Or... is the kind of thing where you want me to be real solemn so you can talk in detail about each thing?"

April had flashbacks to a turtle in a trench coat, fedora, red knit scarf, and holding a newspaper between leather gloves that were really more like kitchen mitts with the fingers stitched together, hidden more by bad lightning than art of stealth. She shared a look with Raphael.

"What are we talking about?" Anastasia asked as she entered the room still toweling off her hair, while wearing nothing but a towel.

Everyone fell progressively quiet as they noticed.

"Wild," Sandro croaked, a real bonafide turtle roar thrumming in the back of his throat, eyes focused, arms visibly shaking as if he was barely reigning in on flipping the table and strangling her to death. "What is wrongwith your _brain?"_

"Pfft, Mikey did it," she said with a flick of her hand, as she rounded an alerted Mikey and came up behind Leonardo, who had apparently only just noticed the entire room had gone quiet and turned worriedly about. He visibly jumped when he saw the state of things.

"What happened?!" Leo demanded, looking momentarily terrified. "I explicitly supplied you with training gear to prevent this from ever happening!"

"I found the bubble bath," she reported. "The entire bathroom corridor is now filled with pink foam and I can't find my clothing which I'm left to assume is now soaked, regardless. These are towels I stole from the linen cabinet while escaping the encroaching wall of bubbles. Can you please help me?"

"Ah..." Leo pulled off his _happi_ jacket to place around her shoulders, which worked rather well as a robe given the size difference. After hovering there for a second, and still looking partially in shock, Leo unexpectedly scooped her off the ground, perhaps just to ensure no cloth went missing in the next few seconds. "Rectifying the situation," he alerted his family, and quickly strode out of the kitchen with teenager in arm.

A moment passed in silence.

And then:

"YA WERE SUPPOSED TA BE ON YA'S BEST BEHAVIOR!" Sandro roared down at a volume that made Raphael lean back slightly, throwing down his food and stomping to the mouth of the hallway.

"What did Mikey do?" Shadow asked, confused by why any of this was upsetting.

Mikey was rapidly signaling 'no, no, no!'

"Walked naked out of the shower," Donatello specified quietly.

"DIS IS DA FIRST GODDAMN DAY AH HAVE YOU BACK FOR MAYBE MORE THAN FIVE HOURS AND YA DO DIS IN FRONT OF MAH MOTHER!" Sandro's voice came from down the hallway. "ARE YA FUCKIN' INSANE!? DO YA WANT TA END UP BORED N' ALONE, IZ ZHAT IT!?"

"But _none_ of you wear any clothes when swimming," Shadow reminded them, absolutely mystified. "We were just at the farmhouse, I remember!"

"You know what," Casey decided, "I think you guys need to keep this chick around."

April and Donatello both looked at him.

"What?" Casey grinned charmingly. "It was getting _dull_ around here. Like, April, I totally remember _you_ chasing this clown around the house with a hairbrush," he kicked Mikey's chair, "because he had your _bra_ on his head and was pretending to be Batman. Ah, those were the days..."

Raphael wiped his mouth and got up.

"WHEN YOU GET BACK HERE YOU ARE GONNA APOLOGIZE TA MY PARENTS, DO YOU HEAR ME!? OR AH AM GOIN' TO TEAR ALL YA'S ARMS AND LEGS OFF AND SEND YA'S HOME IN A PLASTIC B-"

"Hokay, okay," Raphael had grabbed hold of Sandro and manhandled him back into the kitchen and into his seat. "Eat. You're absolutely right, none of dis conversation shoulda happened while ya was at risk fa gettin' hangry."

Sandro huffed and seethed and trembled and looked up at Raphael with a degree of mournfulness that suggested the entire world had just been broken. "But- she-!"

Raphael laughed. "Seriously kid. Food first. S'gonna be okay."


	90. Rotoscoping

"The _bubbles!_ " Michelangelo finally exploded like a hyena, laughing into the table and hitting his fist upon the wood. "She-is-def-my-surrogate-chilllddd! _The bubbles! BUAHAHAH!_ "

Even with numerous swats and punches, it took awhile for Casey to get him to stop his hysterical whoops and sobs and to resume working again.

* * *

Kinpōge turned slowly in place to see everything.

Asymmetric hardwood shelves with vibrantly polished grains were adorned with very neat and discretely-selected-looking objects: Vases, stones, white candles, ink brushes, and books sewed down the side of the spine with a panel of Japanese characters down the front. Scrolls hung at staggered heights on the parchment-colored walls, displaying calligraphy, mountains, bamboo, birds, and flowers in blue, black, and soft reddish inks. A number of Asian swords, of various lengths and curvatures, hung upon the wall, including one set where both sheathes were present but one blade appeared missing.

Expensive leather bound books lined half of the nearby shelf with the names in gold leaf on the spines, and standing beside them, artfully positioned to bask under what must have been a solar-spectrum lamp, was a live plant whose bright white flowers hung out along a graceful diagonal curl of stem. Here and there sat little packets of charcoal, presumably to absorb moisture and keep the air inhospitable to mold. Dark wood floors, cloth boxes filed neatly and not a hair out of line under the immaculately made bed, and a sliding-door cupboard made the rest of the room looking open, spacious, uncluttered, and worthy of an interior designer.

Honestly there wasn't a single wrinkle on his pillow, sheets, or duvet, which seemed like it ought to be impossible. Sensei pulled out one of those cloth boxes and set it upon his bed.

"Why's there a hammock?" Kinpōge asked, baffled by the wall farthest from the bed, which seemed to be archived under some alternative organization schema, with most things packed up in stacked plastic boxes.

"It is Raphael's," Sensei said as he neatly rifled through stacks of cloth articles within that box without displacing or wrinkling a single one of them. "If he is in trouble, it occasionally sees some use."

Kinpōge blinked rapidly, hugging her impromptu bath robes plus towels around herself. "You shared a room as kids?"

Leonardo nodded, and then turned to her with a neat stack of black garments, and she was surprised to see it really was in her size, and not something which had once belonged to any other friend or female. Apparently he'd had several different back up plans for his This Child is an Unprepared Slob problem.

"Um." A wave of something like panic hit, and Kinpōge racked her brain as he packed up his box. "Can I have some duct tape?" That would work! Painful, but it would work.

He blinked. "What for?"

"I am choosing to protect your innocence by not answering that question," she expertly evaded.

Sensei paused. Then, without saying anything, he put his box away, pulled out another box, and drew out a roll of what appeared to be athletic tape, for a person's hands, and reached back and placed it on top of her bundle of clothing.

Error. Brain malfunction. Sensei knows what boobs are.

Red as a tomato, terrified she had just alienated _everyone,_ and suddenly almost shaking, Kinpōge blurted things out that ought not to have been blurt: "It's not even like there's even any mass to contain, cause ya know apparently puberty intends to leave me behind, but instead of just leaving it at that and leaving me alone, it still shows up through thin clothing, and it is weird and stupid and makes me uncomfortable, and I already messed up catastrophically back there, and I don't want to look _happy to see people_ on top of it!"

Sensei finally looked back at her, brows raised. And stared.

Kinpōge stared back, mouth dropping, horrified.

Why in Splinter's name had that just happened?

Under no circumstances was this an okay forum to have a surge of teenagery insecure body-type hormones surge up from the depths of nowheresville in front of strangers. Worst possible time. Ha-ha. What the hell. Hee. Oh boy. Hahahahah.

Kinpōge hugged her clothing in a tight defensive curl, and slapped a hand over her face. "I'm so sorry," she whimpered, because when you were in trouble for walking around your best dude friend's house in a towel in front of his entire family, the correct course of action was not to break out in a psychotic meltdown describing attributes of your non-existent boobs to a thirty-year-old bachelor who wasn't even related to you, despite/especially because of/regardless of said confidant's level of asceticism. She felt psychologically repulsive—even more so because she knew she also leeched on Michelangelo, too, like she was trying to drag these people into acting like parents or uncles when those relationships weren't actually there and never would be, and, in the context of her TMI deluge, even the way she teased Donatello was rendered cringe-worthy.

Sensei finished packing his box away. Then he stood up and came over, and she felt fingers alight on her head. Not like he was nervous or ready to call up a psychiatrist to get her out of his house. Gentle.

"When one is young, many embarrassing things seem like the end of the world. But they are not. They are forgiven, and later become funny stories no one ever lets you live down, told across camp fires on holidays."

She hesitantly lifted her head, face and fingers wet with tears. Sensei was smiling at her. Like this was something which he could remember happening to himself, or close enough. Instead of looking disgusted or molested or horrified—Sensei looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"And to think, your flippant whirlwind still looked so flawless." He gently inspected her still swollen cheek and wiped tears from her face the way turtles seemed to do to one another, and which Sandro had accepted from her as a legitimate form of cosseting. "Hmm. Perhaps now is not the time for humility? No. No, streak on through, child," he instructed haughtily, with that strange fond sneer that she was surer than ever belonged to her, like it was a mother's loving smile or a father's proud grin. "Albeit less like Casey Jones in pursuit of fresh boxers while we all gape in violation, and perhaps more like Casey Jones shouting 'phew!' after a particularly arduous encounter with a 'number two' in the bathroom toilet, and then loudly shouting about ripeness and how he hopes no one plans to go in there for awhile. Less uncaring, more brazenly _foolhardy._ "

That-that almost sounded like what Dad would have said. It didn't sound like Leonardo-the-strict-disciplinarian-who-did-things-one-way-and-only-one-way. It sounded loving. Proud. Kinpōge bobbed her head quickly and squeezed her eyes shut.

"I shall step out. Dress swiftly and give me no regrets over leaving you alone for two minutes." He patted her head and headed for the door.

"Yes, Master Leonardo."

She felt him pause and then stand there halfway through the threshold, like he'd been hit. She didn't dare turn around, waiting, hugging her clothes. Silence stretched as two parts of an unasked query were understood and deliberated upon by the same nonsensical magic that had given it life. It felt like a test, except it was ambiguous who or what was being tested: Sensei's mind or hers.

"' _Deshi,_ '" Sensei said, almost to himself. Her breath caught in her throat. "It does not roll off the tongue in English with the same ease, but it should suffice."

A word was needed? Was-wasn't Leo secretly a science fiction buff? "'Padawan,'" Kinpōge brainstormed laterally into her bundle of clothing.

"Oh!" She got an actual chuckle. A laugh! "Oh, my _padawan_ , recall that lunch is getting cold," Leonardo said through an audible grin. "Be quick." He stepped out.

Grinning ear-to-ear into her bundle of clothing, rocking herself on her heels, Kinpōge took a moment to giggle like a crazy person and cry a little and wipe her nose on her forearm, and for this precious moment her brain didn't have questions of loyalty or appropriateness or chaos or law, because she had a family, with people in it, and it wasn't her imagination. Okay. Okay! Time to compose herself. Ahem. And not be an Anakin, either!

* * *

Leonardo and Wildcard stood contemplating the bathroom corridor. It was a giant pink wall, like packing foam, from ceiling to floor.

"The linen cabinet needs to be rescued before the inside grows damp and musty," Leonardo mused. "I shall need to find a dehumidifier..."

"I think I'm the one who needs to clean all this up. For Donnie," Wildcard explained, peering up at it all. "He will spit in my cup in front of me otherwise, I am sure of it."

"Crooked, the child's list of priorities remains. Responsibility for her actions, however, she seems to take. The teacher, objections, shall have none."

"How does one clean this much foam Master Yoda?" she wondered in bafflement, looking up to him in hopes of obtaining enlightenment.

"I have no idea," Leonardo realized. "Usually I make Mikey do it. If only because it is Mikey who always causes it."

"I can totally see Mikey putting soap in the dishwasher, mentos in the cola, firecrackers in the- Why isn't it spilling out of the corridor? Man, that bubble bath needs to come with a _warning label_ of some kind!"

"Nonsense. Far too plebian of us to think that way. Lables, pssh. Instead, Donatello installed a 'foam containment field.' Right about here."

Wild sighed and shook her head understandingly. "When all you have is a genius, everything looks like quantum physics."

Blue snapped his fingers. "The wet vacuum," he realized. "Come, I think I know how you might start. If at least the bathroom toilet is rendered accessible, you shall not be remiss in joining the lunch table."

"I need to find my bandanna, I'm completely naked without it," she followed after him to discover the location of a closet.

"Well, _naturally,_ " Leonardo agreed as if that should not even need be said. "The skin upon your brow is visible. Positively obscene."

"Sensei, your joke delivery is like we have Leslie Neilson back alive again and I think that's beautiful. Hey! I have a question. Have you told your brother you're happy he's coming home yet?"

Leonardo blinked at her. "Pardon?"

"Your brother. Moving back in the house. The one you shared a room with as children. Whom contextual evidence suggests you may possibly have missed during his eight year absence, seeing as you still have his hammock, and you never moved out his boxes of stuff into storage or anything. You just left it there, like, you know, people would do if they wanted to be reminded of someone."

Leo blinked at her several times like she hadn't spoken.

"Okay I'm not presently covering up anything or hiding from reality, so your 'I can't hear your conversational diversions' maneuver has no effect right now. Because I'm not diverting. I know you can hear me, Sensei, you're right here and not senile or deaf yet."

Her Sensei reflected upon this. "He is not usually interested in hearing things he considers 'sappy'."

Bingo. "Well you could _try,"_ she mentioned. "What's the worst that can happen?"

Sensei's face suggested a lot of random and dramatic reactions had occurred on previous instances of trying to show affection or sympathy to Raphael and/or the other people in his homestead. Wildcard was starting to get the sensation her mentor didn't entirely understand how to read peoples moods, rendering their reactions something of a dice roll to him. Maybe he avoided any activities which had three or four times in a row led to bad responses, and some protracted period of stress half a decade ago had just shut off everything for him. Wasn't one kind of Asian philosophy built around conflict avoidance?

"Maybe bad reactions are a risk you're supposed to take, now and then?" She hesitated and then shrugged and patted his arm. "I'm sorry, I actually don't know what I'm talking about, I have never actually had a family large enough to need to conduct conflict resolution in it before. I just remembered a lot of people got on your case about your aloofness lately, so I just figured I'd nudge you. Maybe it's been long enough and they're emotionally ready for a 'yay' or two?"

* * *

"Where is she?" Sandro growled almost petulantly from the kitchen table the second Leo entered. He was finishing up his fish and noodles with angry stabs of his chopsticks

"She is carving a path through the bubbles with a vacuum," Leonardo explained. "Whilst making light saber sound effects."

"Naked?" Casey asked, eating with a fork.

"Ah. Pardon. No; I found some things I'd put aside in the event of an emergency."

"Ya just randomly have girl's clothes stashed in ya room?" Raphael asked.

"And lo and behold there was an emergency requiring them," Leonardo mused, "so clearly I am an _excellent_ planner with a cutting edge judge of character and acute foresight."

"Hon," April kicked Raphael. "She's poor. They all gave her practical stuff for her birthday, like exercise gear."

"Nonsense, obviously the keeping of spares is vulgar."

Leonardo was just on a roll as he placed fish and rice onto his plate and returned to their table. Nobody wanted to stop him, he seemed happy and Leo was so rarely anything other than neutral.

"Oh. Raphael, by the way: Yay."

"What?" Raphael blinked at him.

"You are coming home. I am overjoyed."

"Ya sound sarcastic or somethin."

"No. I am trying to prevent Casey from howling 'ghey' from the sidelines. Never mind. Perhaps I shall try again later. Go back to what you were doing."

Raphael stared at Leo inscrutably for a moment over crossed arms. Then he rubbed his entire face as if exhausted, got up, walked around the table, and grabbed hold of his eldest brother so tight he lifted him off his feet.

Sandro gaped. And took a video. gaped. Mikey gaped. April started laughing. Leonardo didn't gape, per se, but his face was probably best described by emoticon at that juncture. Possibly something in the O_o family of emoticons, maybe with a sweat drop or both eyes tiny; hard exactly to say.

"Yeah," Raphael said to his only older brother, who was still aloft. "I missed ya too, dumbass. Nice, eh, dat we had this chat. Should do it again sometime."

"We. We could go fishing. Sometime. Not today of course."

"Sure. S'a date."

"Ghey!" Casey joyfully complied with their expectations of him, accentuated by cupping his hands in a microphone.

Donatello swatted him over the head, Casey whipped a hockey stick at him that came up short when Donatello leaned out of the way, and a fight broke out. Several good dishes and a chair were damaged in the process.

Michelangelo pushed aside his work, placed his fingers to his mouth, and whistled loud. He began clapping for his eldest brothers, shouting 'encore, encore!"


	91. Humiliation

"Thank all available ancestors and/or animal spirits that _that's_ almost over," Wildcard said as she strode through the kitchen, tying a bandanna mask back over her head.

A dark and cloudy turtle boy stormed out of the living room while throwing a free-weight back over his shoulder with enviable ease. (Raphael casually caught it, like it was a ball, and proceeded to toss it, catch it, repeat.) More than an hour must have passed, because it looked like everyone but Mikey was gathered around the television, watching Shadow play a _Legend of Zelda_ game and talking to one-another about financial success in the music industry. Clearly this was designed as some kind of psychological torture for Michelangelo; there could be no other explanation for Casey Jones willingly participating in a discussion which had dared to mention Justin Bieber.

"Up-buh-buh-buh," Wildcard interrupted Sandro with a raised hand to his face. "If you get between me and lunch I will gnaw off your arm," she said. "Or mine, depends what I end up z-targeting first."

Sandro loomed, fuming, over her. "Apologize," he ordered crisply.

"False!" she declared against what hadn't even been a question. "I didn't knowingly do a single thing wrong and refuse to apologize. So instead, for my next trick-!" She lifted up an empty Windex bottle from nowhere, produced the bottle of bubble bath from also-nowhere, and then poured one into the other and screwed on the spray head. She whipped out a marker, pulled off the cap with her teeth, and wrote 'two to four pumps' in manic scrawl across the paper front of it. "Tada!" she proclaimed with a pitch of the bottle at Donatello, who was excellent at not getting hit by fast-moving objects in his peripheral and seemed to have programmed himself to catch them entirely by reflex. "I have stupid-proofed your bathroom!" She dusted off her hands. "No need to thank me. All in a day's work for those of us with heroic dispositions."

"How's the cleanup?" Donatello asked, bemusedly contemplating the repurposed windex bottle.

"I mined my way to the toilet and had to stop because I ran out of torches and pork chops, but the _oshiire_ has a dehumidifier in it, and I even remembered to move all the blankets out of the way so I don't start a house fire!"

"Oh, well then: Food's on the counter."

"Yes!"

Sandro advanced on her. She casually pressed a rescued-from-the-foam can of deodorant it into his grasping hands, and then skipped past him to the counter.

"I'm still confused!" Shadow shouted from the couch.

Sandro stood there for a moment, wringing the can as a surrogate for her neck. Then he dropped his arms and tilted back his head and made an annoyed sigh. "Your cheek is swelling again," he complained.

"Is that why it feel hot?" she asked from where she was standing on her toes to try and pull the fish and noodles to herself. "Maybe it's affecting my brain, I should take some Ibuprofen..."

"I'll get some fresh balm and compression wraps," Sandro muttered and headed towards the needle room.

"Aren't you the one who hit her?" Casey asked from one of the arm chairs, himself sporting several bruises across his chin, arms, and forehead.

"Hello, my name is Michdonraphardo," Sandro groused as he left. "I fix, prank, and lecture the things I break."

"I'm minorly alarmed I'm not even remotely needed to intervene in any of this," April reflected to Donnie, her tone suggesting the whole experience was a fine wine she was sampling. "But sort of enjoying watching the world not fall apart because I was sitting down."

"Hey it's your weekend, Turtle Mama," Wildcard said as she finally got her food to a plate and carried it to her seat. "You wear the pants in this family, you _should_ be the one resting."

Raphael or Casey must have had a hilarious facial expression reaction, because April busted out laughing. Wildcard chalked up another mental mark under 'successes communicating with females!'

"In my defense, your husband is wearing like a combo kilt loincloth of some kind," Wild pointed out with her chopsticks as she climbed into the overlarge chair to eat.

"Have to air out the boys," Casey supported with a grin. "Right Raph?"

Wildcard sat up straight and pointed with her chopsticks. " _Tail length!_ " she shouted in epiphany. "I was wondering why half of you don't wear slacks!"

"Who has been talkin ta dis Mouse about tails!?" Raphael exclaimed with a point of his dumbbell, as Casey started laughing his ass off.

"Oh, at last," Donatello observed smugly, "she has targeted _you_. Ah, it feels good getting to watch it happen to someone else. Splendid, truly."

"Super power engaged!" Wild agreed, lifting up a hand for a long-distance hi-five which Michelangelo made shorter by redirecting it to himself. "Oh hey," she whispered. "I screwed up helping you with line work! I'm sorry..."

Mikey gave her a big, warm, crinkling-his-eyes-he-had-so-much-love-to-give grin, and he paused his work temporarily to ruffle her hair and bandanna.

"Talk to you about all the stuffs later," he whispered back, and went back to work, and Wild had this very good positive feeling that she'd already faded into the background of the turtle's lives and nobody felt the need to single her out as something that didn't belong or needed to be ostracized. Leo was right: This was going to end up a campfire story.

* * *

Sandro returned and unceremoniously grabbed hold of Wild's mask tails to pull her head back from her food.

"I will fight you, Princess!" she shouted with a starved flounder.

"Ya move and I will smear this stuff in your eye and, trust me, it burns," Sandro said as he dabbed her face.

"Well crap, the face cloths and hand towels are still buried under layers of hilariously pink bubbles," she lamented. "You win this round, Turtle Soup. I mean Boy. I'm hungry. How's your jaw, by the way?"

"S'more like my teeth feel rattled," Sandro admitted. "Can't tell if da splitting headache was ya heel to my cranium or your severe social retardation. Okay, how's that, Miss Pirate? Need an ice pack?"

She held up the Ibuprofen bottle for him. "I'm good; take these."

Grumbling, Sandro went to the sink to get a glass of water and do just that. Wildcard reached across the table for the tea kettle, paused, and stared at Sandro. Her eyes widened. Then she leaped out of her chair with a throw of her chopsticks back towards the table, and scrambled up behind him. "San!" she exclaimed, crouching down and touching his shell, and momentarily confusing the one or two adults who noticed, probably because 'tails' had been on the roster of conversational topics not five minutes past. "Don't move for a sec."

"What - Now." He was going to shatter that glass of water if he held onto it any tighter. Today had been a day of Many Things (tm).

She felt along a scute, pushing his clothing ties out of the way. The carapace _crinkled_ under her fingers, and she grimaced. "Saaaann, uh, you know how you told me to warn you if I ever saw any 'wavy lines'?"

Sandro went ram-rod straight.

Mikey looked up from his art and mouthed 'o no.'

The next thing they knew, "He gave it ta ME!?" exploded from the kitchen as Sandro twisted around and reached back to touch his shell, trying to get a glimpse.

"San!" Wildcard grabbed hold of his legs.

"Was it na enough he kicked da SHIT out of me, he had ta give me his _FUNGAL INFECTION!?"_

"Wow, that sounds hilarious out of context!" Wildcard squeaked. "San! Sandro, stop panicking! San you can't possibly see it, it's _on your shell!_ Turn your butt around, let _me_ see!"

"Oh dear," Donatello got up and rounded the couch. "Let me see. Sandro, your immune system was partially repressed while you were healing, you had minor abrasions on the shell, and this is about the length of time for-"

"I take _care_ of my _shell_!" Sandro disagreed vehemently. "I scrub it every single-!"

Uncle and Sister stuffed their panicking boy plastron-down onto the counter top, so that Doctortello could have a better look. Wild directed attention to the scute in question, which was down by his left thigh. Donatello scratched the carapace with his thumb, revealing it had softened and would flake off like a peeling sunburn, only more icky.

Sandro's fingers curled on the counter top as he waited for the verdict and seethed in denial.

"That's absolutely shell rot," Donatello agreed, and Sandro made a violated noise. "The good news is, she's caught it early. Thank you, Ana.

"Oh thank goodness," Wildcard gushed, "my habit of staring like a stalker at turtle shell patterns has finally done some good."

"I've _never had_ shell rot!" the youngest turtle was clearly going through the five stages of grief at a break-neck pace. "Never!"

"It's going to be _fine,"_ Donatello said, chafing his shell both out of affection and while, apparently, looking for more afflicted patches. "Do I look or sound like I'm handling something in need of _quarantine?_ It looks like it's set in at the site of a single scratch you took during the dojo fight, and it's not anywhere else."

"Not that I can see, either," Wildcard agreed, running her nails along nearby carapace the way Donnie was. She was much, much shorter than the adult turtles, and one of very few people shorter than Sandro, which had to be the reason she'd noticed the sick patch first. "How do you even treat shell rot? It's a fungus, not a bacteria or anything?"

"It's a fungus. It's treated through debridement of necrotic tissue, the application of antibiotic ointment, and some other holistic remedies," Donnie explained. "For instance, we'll change his sheets and pillowcase every day."

"My _shelllll..._ " a boy was moping like this was the end of the world, and if Wildcard hadn't just had her _own_ 'end of the world' experience an hour or so ago, she'd probably laugh at him.

Instead she glanced behind them to see how Raphael was reacting, since he hadn't said anything. Oh! Raphael sat there in the living room easy chair, wearing the world's biggest eyes and the guiltiest expression, like one could have captioned it with something like: 'o sweet jesus i have given my child cancer/leprosy/aids i am the worst father ever.'

Ha!

"Wait, what happened?" Casey asked.

"You know what this means," Wild said conspiratorially to Sandro.

Sandro looked at her.

"It means you're going to help me clean the foam out of the bathroom to reach the tub!" she cheered.

Sandro tried to drown her in the sink, but since Donatello was already holding him down that didn't work very well and instead he just got a sister laughing hysterically all over him.

* * *

Help cleaning was not what shell rot meant, sadly.

The adults ended up treating Sandro's shell in the needle room, which was a clinic Wildcard hadn't seen much of and appeared to be stocked to the nines with every conceivable sort of medication and/or medical appliance a hospital could really need, from TUMS to surgical scalpels and literally everything in between. There was a single cot within and Donatello and April coaxed Sandro into taking off his shirt and laying down on his plastron to accept treatment. He covered his head with his arms like this was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him.

Wildcard, who wondered if this was an analogous experience to being sent home from school with lice, found the whole treatment procedure interesting to watch. Since Sandro kept his pants on, she didn't get chased out of the needle room. First, they quickly cleaned off his entire shell with saline and big cotton pads, starting from the healthy areas and making sure not to swipe outward from the affected area. They soaked the fungally afflicted spot by placing heavy cloth with some kind of Betadine solution over it, and then after about five minutes they scrubbed at the infection sight to get rid of all the rotten tissue and leave behind a pink area, which sort of like he'd had a small rug burn there. Donatello was right, it wasn't bad. They set up an intense UV light with a cone shield over that exact location, probably to bomb the fungus as if from orbit without giving themselves or any other part of Sandro cancer, and then spread silver sulfadiazine cream over that spot, which Wild only recognized because she'd once had a very mild case of athletes' foot, and Dad had nuked it with stuff that ought to have been prescription only, and it had made her laugh.

Sandro was miserable.

"Alright, while that dries," Donatello said, "we're going to go assault your father and do the same thing to him, only in the kitchen, with Casey making commentary like 'ew that's nasty' the entire time. Half because we still haven't quite forgiven him for that Friday. Half because it amuses me, and I take my amusements where I can."

April elbowed him.

Donatello gave a smiling shrug, as if saying 'yep, i'm a terrible person,' which was of course belied by how he was the one constantly fixing and making things, supporting and healing everyone else, and so naturally must have had a very giving personality under all that sass and brain.

"Can I get up yet?" Sandro growled.

"Wait for it to _dry_ so nothing gets into it," Donatello disagreed, and then turned to Wildcard and unexpectedly handed her a bottle of liquid bandage. "Since you are feeling so _helpful_ today," he told her dryly, in a tone that definitely implied she was not to leave the bathroom cleanup job half-assed or unfinished, "spray the infection site with this in exactly five minutes."

Wildcard saluted, April gave Sandro a reassuring hug, and the adults headed out to tag-team an already-humiliated Raphael into a corner.

Silence reigned for a few seconds.

"I need to go back to bed," Sandro finally said into the muffle of his arms. "Six separate things have happened today and I'm exhausted."

" _You're_ exhausted?" Wild asked, sitting on the cot beside him. "I innocently put a dollop of bubble bath into a tub the size of public fountain, and it took on a life of its own and tried to suffocate me to death and chased me out! Naked! Who naively expects a bubble monster to cover the entire bathroom and eat all their clothing!? I remembered Leo teaching me the word for 'linen cabinet' in Japanese, _oshiire,_ so I thought at least I could cover myself with something like a sheet or blanket, and I managed to actually find towels and was like 'jackpot, Master Splinter is looking out for me,' and then I had to decide whether to raid the room that I speculate is your parents' room for clothing and show up to the kitchen dressed in your mother's stuff like some kind of casual thief, or otherwise waltz in wearing only a towel and ask Sensei to rescue my honor. Choices were made, Sandro, tough choices!"

Sandro seemed to settle in and forgive her a bit as he realized just how unexpected the foampocalypse had been.

"It gets worse, though!" Wild narrated, because this exposition on her experience seemed to be calming her brother down. "I had to explain I didn't have any undergarments! And then had a breakdown and started crying because I'm apparently stressed but don't realize it, and then—instead of recoiling in uncomfortable terror!—he patted me on the head and just said something to the effect of, "Lol, teenagers always think the world is ending," and it was all forgiven. Except I was apparently still so embarrassed—without even realizing it!—that I had to work out my stress cleaning up the disaster in the bathroom before I could face anyone and missed the entire first half of the day!"

Sandro wormed an arm around where she was sitting and hugged her hips to his side as he let his shell dry out. "It's just one of those days," he decided with a heavy sigh, apparently remember that Wild usually didn't go crazy _just_ to mess with him, or, at least, not for lengthy periods of time. "We'd normally just pass out under the Sakura tree or on the couch or something."

"Yeah," she agreed, picking up an unused scrub brush from where it was still sitting neatly on a clean white cloth. Puzzled, she turned around and placed the bristles on top of Sandro's shell, and scrubbed in a large circle.

His eyes rounded out, and he lifted his head and turned to look at her like she'd just something of great impact.

Wild blinked. She scrubbed in a littler circle?

"O-okay," Sandro interrupted with a burred clearing of his throat that sounded suspiciously like a purr, "Um. Not on the day you showed up almost-naked in our kitchen."

Wildcard recoiled and looked suspiciously down at the brush as if it had betrayed her.

Sandro laughed. "S'just... probably analogous to a back massage or something. But I don't want anyone thinking the wrong way. Mom and Donnie left you in here with me so _clearly_ they didn't think anything was a big deal. I think they were actually laughing to one another about Leo's face, and trying to figure out why you went to _him_ first of all people. Donnie pointed out Mike was busy..."

"Oh." Wild was relieved she hadn't done anything overtly sensual, and set the brush back where she found it.

"No, in the tub with the other dirty ones. Wild. C'mon. This is a clinic. Keep 'sanitized' in one spot and 'not sanitized' in the other."

"Right! Woops!" She flipped the brush into the right tub and it splashed. She winced. "I'm a slob," she decided.

"Eh."

"What about during the week? Can I scrub your shell during the week?"

"That sounds so good," Sandro groaned honestly. "Would you? It's a lot of work."

"Aw, I owe you, I can tell," she leaned into and patted the shell in question. "Besides, I love your shell, it's beautiful, I can totally scrub it clean once as an excuse to put my hands all over it. It'll be like Karate kid. Wax on... wax off... I'll be exercising my blocks!"

He snickered. "I'll look forward to it."

"Aw." She leaned over and touched her forehead to his temple. "So! Tell me what I missed out on! What's the ruling on the five-hour thing? Did Mikey get some pages done? Was there a conversation about the towel thing? What happened!? Anything?!"

"Well Leo said 'Yay.'"

"Oh dear Splinter. Like _that_? Literally 'yay?'"

Sandro drew out his phone, swiped, and handed it to her. Wildcard blinked, pressed 'play,' saw the expression Sensei was wearing, and threw back her head and whooped like a hyena, sagging into Sandro she was laughing so hard. He grinned and rolled partially onto his side, hugging her perpendicularly into him and looking very content just to have her physically there.

"You're in _black_ ," he murmured, hugging her against that smooth plastron she rarely ever got to see. She didn't trace the scutes; they looked enough like abdominal muscles for her to retain her good sense. "Ninja black. Tabi and everything. This is incorrect. _I'm_ Yin."

Wild grinned. She reached up and tugged on the back of his mask, pulling it off, and then she took hers off and swapped it with him.

"Oh, I'm Yang today, is that it?" Sandro asked, grinning as she straightened the white fabric around his eyes. The color change did a completely different thing to his appearance, bringing out the rich copper of his eyes.

"You've been a _fantastic_ Yang today," she agreed. "This is just to commemorate your Yangness after the fact. I'll take it back tomorrow."

"Fair." He smoothed back her black bandanna. "I'm surprised the undergarments thing even came up. Do people not just ditch those sometimes and go 'ah well?'"

"Oh! Boobs. Athletic tape," she explained.

"But..." he looked her back and forth, confused. "You don't have anything to tape down...?"

"You'd think so, right!?" she exclaimed with a flail. "None of the fat, but its turns out the mn-hmm-hmms are just as noticeable! Freaks me out in a mirror, and I yelp 'dear god why is this a thing?!' and then I have to put a hoodie on!"

"You just _censored_ yourself?! Oh! Oh how the mighty have _fallen!_ "

"Blah! Nyah, blah, myah!" she mocked irreverently, and Sandro giggled and hugged her crushingly.

"So let me get this straight," her brother asked luxuriously, like a half-napping lion. "Your boobs bother you?"

"My non-existent boobs somehow bother me," she moaned feebly, a hand over her face.

"I completely understand," her turtle growled affectionately. "My non-existent nose somehow bothers me."

Wildcard considered that. "Wow. Perspective. It's a thing."


	92. Functional Maturity

"Dad!" Wildcard exclaimed, rushing in the room and throwing herself over the back of the couch.

"Squirt!" Dad exclaimed back.

"Dad!"

"Squirt!"

"Dad!"

"Squirt!"

"Dad, I love you, have I told you that recently?"

"Ha!" Joker pulled her down from over the couch back to let her flop in his lap. "Status report!" he prompted curiously. "How did things go? It's dawn, so I see you were permitted to remain the entire evening, but you've inexplicably changed into black clothing. Does this mean the dreaded Time Limit of Bore _doom_ was or wasn't lifted? Where advanced shenanigans had?"

"I was with them the whole time!" she exclaimed in a frazzled spazzle. "They didn't make me leave, but technically I was busy cleaning up the gigantic pink bubble foam monster that took out the entire bathroom and adjoining corridor, and we kinda kept forgetting to _ask_ about the limit!"

"The _what_!?"

She showed him photographic evidence Sandro had reminded her to take. "Mikey had this fantastic bubble bath that was apparently sent to him from an alien pen pal—I legit mean from outer space—and it's expansive properties were non metaphorically _out of this world!_ "

"Oh, _my_ ," Joker agreed with pleasure, flicking through her photographs. "I _need_ to get me some of this. That's _amazing._ "

"But wait, there's more!" Wild pointed with both fingers in a 'bang bang.' "How do you think your conversation with Sandro's parents went the week before?"

"Pshh." He gave a definitive wave and his eyelids lowered to a confident half mast. "Nailed it. Hook line and sinker. I told you Squirt, it's all about having nothing to hide. Last I checked, I was neither a Foot Ninja, nor a multidimensional alien stomach brain. I'm _automatically_ in the clear."

"Well _Sandro_ told me his parents are assembling outings for him, and _one_ of them is vaguely defined as a trip to the Bronx Zoo—with _you_ as one of the chaperones!"

Joker tossed the phone and nearly lost it as he fumbled to snatch it back out of the air. "Does this mean I've made friends!?" he inquired excitedly, as if he hadn't just been jadedly remarking on the gullibility of the human condition.

"I think this means you've made friends!" she agreed, throwing her arms around him.

"I never thought this would happen! _"_ he wailed, like she'd just presented him with a gold star for Successfully Humaning. "I feel like this is the Oscars and I need a speech prepared! That or the Golden Razzies, they're really the same to me!"

" _I know!_ I'm _so proud_ of youuuuuu!" Wild recalled a second thing she'd meant to check in on. "Whatever happened with Tupperware Neighbor Lady? The one who makes calzones? I notice we keep getting excellently tasting food in strange Tupperware boxes!"

"Oh! Mrs. Eastman? Well." Her father cleared his throat. "After I dragged you along that one Friday while you were half unconscious—"

"—yeah I _barely_ remember that, sorry—"

"—well inevitably I bit the bullet and started attending her house parties by myself. Additional trading of food was conducted. There was some small talk. I may or may not have agreed to help with some kind of bake sale or parade or party or parties or something."

Wildcard's eyes rounded. "You're making friends by _yourself?_ Without the thin context of my social acceptance for motivation?"

Dad made a nervous gulp. "I... maybe?"

 _"WHO ARE YOU?!"_ she howled in horror, shaking him at the shoulders. _"WHERE IS MY FATHER!?"_

"It's not my _fault!_ " he protested. "They keep telling me their whole life stories, so I give them the sharpest and least sympathetic advice I possibly can—to make them go away!—but then they talk to one another and _more_ of them come to tell me their whole life stories! It's like I need to start a Dear Abby Column, except I'm sure everything I'm saying is cruel! You're fat, Betty, and you're going to die of diabetes before you get to meet your grand kids at this rate! You need to cut your portion sizes into _quarters_ and start savoring each slow dainty bite like it's the last thing you'll ever eat! Then I get invited to two more parties!"

"Wait a minute." She thought about this and then regarded him suspiciously. "Does this mean you now have a miniature army of dumpy, middle-aged, lower-class Jersian women who appear attracted to verbal abuse and have all fallen in love with you and are gratuitously flirting despite every negative signal you think you're sending in their direction?"

Her father's eyes grew wide as he stared through her and off into the void.

"They all have the same accent as Harley Quinn," Wildcard realized.

"All of them," her Father whispered hoarsely, hugging her for protection. His voice climbed an octave and fell a decibel. " _All of them._ "

"You know what this means!?" She grabbed his collar. "You're gonna get a girlfriend!"

Her father shrieked and then busted out crying like a toddler after a ghost story. _"Nooooo!"_ he wailed.

She laughed and hugged him around the head and rocked him. Poor Harley Quinn, wherever she was. Apparently she'd cleaned up her act, surmounted her fascination with an absolutely terrible boss/boyfriend, and had joined the good guys, so she definitely didn't deserve this.

"Hey, Dad," she recalled a good story to cheer him up with. "I helped with art!"

"Impossible," her father announced very seriously, righting himself immediately. "You can't art."

"No I can't, but I did! And I think I maybe should possibly help again?"

"That's _terrifying_. Explain immediately!"

* * *

Michelangelo, oddly enough, did not appear to require threats in order to stay glued to his workload.

Seeking intel about why this might be, Wildcard and Sandro clandestinely eavesdropped on a discussion about those comics between April and Donatello. Slowly, Yin and Yang realized the whole situation might be quite serious. Casey, it seemed, had managed to negotiate a quick provisional agreement which specified that everything was due that Wednesday _,_ and, if Mikey failed, he and Casey actually were at risk of being sued by—drum roll!— _Nickelodeon,_ which under more normal circumstances would have instead protected them from the outside world.

Now, not only was that a bridge nobody wanted to burn, and one that usually worked in Mikey's favor, but the duo's own little company was setup specifically to protect their identities. They couldn't _risk_ being sued. Michelangelo couldn't show up in court without making headlines round the world. Casey Jones couldn't show up in court without alerting the Foot to his identity. April couldn't stand in for either of them without alerting the rest of the world that she had something to do with TMNT. Usually, the only solution was to send one's lawyers to talk with someone else's lawyers, and accept whatever outrageous sum of money they wanted to settle on

In this specific instance though, there was more at stake.

Nickelodeon had apparently had it's eyes on the franchise's intellectual property rights for awhile now. Those were standard things, like the ability to sell movie and game rights, make spin-offs, pick the art style for the cartoons, check off scripts, or make the final say in what went into the comics. The fact that they didn't _already_ have these rights boggled Sandro's and Wild's minds for a second, who realized that this must mean that _Mikey_ still had the final say on all these details, in what was easily world-famous franchise, but when they looked to their Orange darling, what they saw sent off warning bells in their heads:

Very real grimaces and panicked winces were crossing his face at every word. He looked _scared._

It dawned on them both that this tiny, second universe he'd 'made,' was Mikey's baby. And if someone forcefully took it away from him—any percentage of it!—there was a very real chance that he'd drop his pencil and never be able to look at it again. Wild and Sandro shared a moment of introspection, struck by the shared realization that if anything happened to Mikey or his comics, it was _their fault._ He'd been busy taking care of _them_.

The two of them shared a tight hi-five and elbow bump, and then Wildcard rejoined MIchelangelo's side, picking up fresh bristol board and blue line work and resuming her inking without being asked. Sandro, who was struggling feeling like he had zero artistic talent (Wild knew how that felt) initially just sat beside them both for emotional support. Then he timidly grabbed for the other laptop, and started looking through the work Shadow had been doing. He started on that.

And that was how the adults found the two of them clustered around Mikey the entire weekend, working diligently and patiently at the only tasks they could without slowing down or becoming stumbling blocks in and of themselves. Mikey didn't complain once. Sometimes he pointed out a slightly different way he wanted something done. There was one or two very dark pages he chose to ink for himself.

Wild helped Sandro feed the snakes on Sunday, and they got to watch Raphael and Donatello spar briefly in the dojo. Then it was back to helping Mikey, slowly inking the line of a katana and the lines of what Sandro would help color into a blue mask. She and Sandro eventually both clustered around a laptop, comparing what was on the screen to the printed pages they were holding in their hands, and matching colors with references on a palette swatch Mikey had given them. Sandro, at least, seemed to understand _computers,_ because he read through some tutorials on their software Sunday morning and found out how to make the highlights and shadows easier for Mikey to edit.

Now and then April stared at them like she was impressed or proud, and patted Sandro's shell. Raphael was curious about the interest more than the comics themselves. He didn't seem to like the comics. Leonardo gave them all funny looks when he got home from patrol, but then successfully started up the tea kettle (without help!) and poured them all tea. Wildcard's was the only one with flowers floating in them. She liked chewing on them, even if they were bitter and that totally wasn't the point of them and probably looked barbaric to all the other tea-drinkers.

Late Sunday night, right before April and Raphael were schedule to leave, a huzzah broke out from the kitchen.

"Thank God, Grandfather, and everything last remaining spiritual entity in between! My tail's _numb_ we've been here so long."

Exhausted and giddy, with dark circles under his eyes, Michelangelo hi-fived Wildcard and Sandro and hugged them both to him, and smooched their bandannas. They both gave dutiful "Eewwwss!" and then hugged him back anyway. Wildcard climbed on top of his shell, to get a better hugging angle.

The three of them were done _early._ Early! Now, if any last-minute changes were needed, the entire universe wouldn't collapse!

Donatello presented them with desert and then discretely swung around the table, sat at Mikey's computer, and actually _sent_ the files to Casey. After which, he started reviewing them to make sure no pages were missing, and that there were no obvious mistakes or glaring problems with quality. Donnie was a pretty awesome brother. Especially because he apparently still had a half-finished project of his own in the lab which he was putting off till after the weekend ended.

* * *

Joker got up in the middle of the 'night' to get a drink of water, and was mildly surprised when he turned around to find his daughter looking sleepless and fidgety behind him.

"Why hello," he greeted sleepily. "How are you this fine Noontime?"

"Insomniatic," she mumbled. "I think it's a form of separation anxiety, can I test my hypothesis by passing out over the foot of your bed like an exhausted corgi?"

"I've officially green lighted this experiment."

She was quiet for a bit, before: "Dad?"

"Mnhmm?"

"There are members of the turtle family who are too old to be my friends, but when they express affection for me, it makes me happy in a deep, pervasive, all the way to the tips of my fingers and the bottom of my stomach. It makes me feel safe, and like I belong, like I'm part of their family. But I'm not. I don't belong to them. They aren't my family. And every time someone else points that out, I feel slapped in the face, woken up to the accusation that I'm acting strange, that what I want is strange."

"You _are_ strange," Joker snickered. "Strange doesn't mean _delusional._ Strange is just strange. You have no ability to be un-strange, so you might as well give up on that and go find out what 'strange' needs from the universe, and grab all of those things, and put them exactly where you want them relative to yourself, no matter what anyone has to say about it."

"Isn't that selfish?" she mumbled feebly.

"Depends entirely on whether you maintain your toys," Joker said. "Or just replace them when they break."

She thought about that for a long time. "You don't feel replaced, do you?"

Joker glanced back at her, and then smirked. "By BatTurtle and Sunshine?" he asked, getting out an apple and cutting it into slices as he thought about the question. "No, they're both good fits for fleshing out your missing sectors on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Sunshine's used to the concept of helping out with a 'communal child,' and can check off 'belonging' for you. BatTurtle's going to be _slightly_ harder to keep under 'self-actualization', but he's slipped perfectly into an old cliche, right where you want him."

"What's that mean?"

"Well just that he's after your _soul_ , Squirt"Joker chuckled, setting the apple slices down for her.

"My _what?"_ She ate one.

"Knightly types are always wanting to _save_ someone from themselves; citation: Batman. By the looks BatTurtle shot me behind everyone's back, he sees me as his enemy in his fight for you, but he can't 'take' you from me without losing your trust, so he'll take second fiddle trying to win you over to his way of thinking while pretending never to wonder where all your questionable morals and knowledge of explosives has come from. Normally morally rigid sticks-in-the-mud suddenly discover wellsprings of moral leeway for their 'pet projectsp."

His daughter's voice was recalcitrant. "Maybe he can have it."

"Hmm?"

"My soul. What's the worst he can do to it?"

Joker thought about that. "Do you really want to be stuck underground in Jersey City all your life, or staking out equally motionless rival ninjas by rooftop? Their world's myopic, and he's the least sensational of them all. Zero personality, zero meaningful interactions with other living entities, zero movement from his exact and perfectly defined role in life..."

She coiled up a bit at this.

Joker looked over at her in concern, realizing she might be on the verge of crying. He thought back about what he'd said, and tried to make sense of where he'd gone wrong.

"I just want to stay with Sandro," she mumbled

"Ah." Joker nodded. "I- I know that, Squirt. Okay. Come here." He sat down to hug her. He wasn't exactly clear on why she still trembled like she was hurting somewhere inside, but he knew hugging her would help validate and support her feelings. "Whatever I said, I didn't mean it."

Days like these proved he desperately needed that family's help raising her. It would have made things so much easier if he could have just spoken frankly with them.

'Hello, I'm a retired supervillain, my daughter wants to be a superhero, and to have friends and loved ones and stuff, can you educate her on how to do the whole not-evil thing, but at the same time not steal her from me entirely, pretty please? Say, can I _board_ her with you half the week? Can you send her and her friend to visit me on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I can spend time with them, too? I promise not to explode anyone that way! I'll be really good! Honest! Say, you should probably read her some fables with good morals in them or something, or have a talk with her about killing, I really didn't know what to do about any of that, there's probably damage control in need of doing, I did my best, yolo!'

Alright, calm down now... Maybe if he was _clever_ about it, the people he'd end up 'speaking to' on a regular basis would be Sandro's mildly estranged parents, and he'd nail a few more birds than two with one stone. Sometimes, a speckle of honesty went a very nice long way.

* * *

Mikey _did not_ manage to wake up to fetch her the next day. After calling him twice, Wildcard concluded the family's lovable ball of sunshine was passed out in a post-artistic crash, and he absolutely deserved it. Ah, well, time to get out the crowbar-

A knock came from under the manhole she was standing beside. Suspicious, she peered at it. "Who's there?"

A mechanical Bo staff displaced the manhole with one neat stab, lifting it up like a juggler's disk and sliding it to the side.

"It seems you're absent your usual escort this evening?" casually inquired a Donatello who was both wearing his fantastic Splinter Cell Goggles and sounding thoroughly amused by her gape of disbelief.

"Y-you should _not_ refer to yourself as an 'escort' any place I'm capable of punning," she finally uttered.

"Walked right into that one," he agreed without getting embarrassed, and gestured for her to come along. She hopped down, and he pulled the manhole cover right back into place with the staff, easy as you please. Then he jumped to the ground, and she envied everything about being a giant mutant ninja turtle. Right up until he said: "Jump!"

Wee! She did so, leaping backwards off the ladder and twisting. She caught hold of an upraised Bo staff, and slung about it and dropped to the ground.

"Mikey's right, you're _quick_ ," she received, and nearly botched her landing. Had someone slipped Donatello happy pills today?

"I could have made my own way," she admitted a little guiltily, dusting off her hands.

"I know you could have," he agreed, leaning his Bo comfortably on his shoulder and tapping his goggles to admit a light for her to see by. "I actually wanted to talk to you."

Uh oh. "About what?" she asked, hopping along to match his lengthy strides.

"A few things. April didn't want to interrupt yesterday. The rest of us all figured Michelangelo would make his deadline—he always does—and maybe we keep kidding ourselves he'll finally learn his lesson about procrastination, or we tell ourselves he deserves to sweat a little. But the truth is..." Donatello shrugged gently, "You and Sandro took a lot of pressure off of him. Actual and imagined pressure." He patted her head. "So thank you."

Wildcard beamed with bashful pleasure and rubbed at the back of her neck and scuffed her foot on the concrete. "Well... Mikey's an angel. It's even in his name!"

Donatello smirked. "I also wanted to ask you about ninjitsu lessons one more time, just to be sure. You've definitely picked the oddest and worst fitting tutor anyone can think of. Seriously, even Casey mentioned it. I spoke with Raphael and April, and we just wanted to make sure you understood that you _don't_ have to study ninjitsu, to keep visiting. You and Sandro are friends. No one is going to take that away from him or from you."

" _Really?_ " Wildcard smiled giddily. "Even after...?" It felt almost anticlimactic to have no more soul-jerking drama!

"Y-yeah," Donatello was nearly giggling. "In-in fact, they had a pretty big laugh about the towel and bubble incident. 'Of all the things that can go wrong when you're trying to impress your friend's parents as a teenager.' Winding up naked and/or destroying a room of the house are pretty high on the list. April is going to talk to you and Sandro about weekends and whether or not the two of you want to set up your schedules so you have time to spend alone with your parents, each of you, but the five hour limit has been repealed.

Yes yes yes!

"You did a good clean-up job by the way."

"Sandro helped," she snickered. "He's got a better concept of what 'clean' looks like than I do, he kept me working an extra hour at it."

"About ninjitsu, though," Donatello back-tracked. "You don't have to be able to keep up with Sandro in martial arts to be his friend. But, assuming you want to study it anyway, it would actually be a really good experience for Michelangelo to teach someone. Not only is he mildly rusty and needs an excuse to lose a few pounds, but I'm pretty sure he's mentally adopted you and would love any excuse to teach you anything. So, just so you're clear... you don't have to sit through Leo's, ah, long-winded lectures on clothes folding, duty to one's ancestors, scientifically unsubstantiated herbology, bonsai maintenance, astrology, and/or the astral plane."

Clearly, if Wildcard dared to enjoy her lessons under Mr. Perfect, it would result in a division by zero that opened up a sinkhole in the space time continuum, and the universe would implode!

"I like Sensei. He's been a solid teacher."

"He also hemmed you in a room for ten hours and didn't let you escape even to eat or use the bathroom," Donatello reminded her, and that was true. "He's a very strict disciplinarian, a perfectionist, and there are times when he can absolutely be a... well, an asshole. Unintentionally cruel."

Oh boy did she know it! Sensei's icy treatment of her through the first week of knowing her had been excruciating, and she'd never gotten a significant explanation for what exactly Mr. Perfect though he had been trying to accomplish. The best she could tell, he'd been purposefully trying to intimidate her. Why? Eh, hard to say. Maybe she'd harry him into a corner and make him answer her for himself?

"I'm not shy about standing up to him," she scoffed.

"I actually wanted to warn you about that, in specific," Donatello advised, seeming genuinely concerned. "Eventually, he's going squash that out of you. He couldn't stand it in Raphael, and he helped iron it almost completely out of Sandro. His intentions aren't malicious but... Leo's all sort of one way, once you've known him long enough. You'll be okay?"

Wildcard contemplated everything Sensei had said to or done for her. She thought about his advice to her on Friday. Then she looked up to Donatello, who was trying to advise her through wisdom and experience, and who had known Leonardo for much longer and knew what his default settings all were. "I am not shy about getting out of bad situations, either," she offered Purple. "If I need help, I'll ask for help. I'm not starstruck or anything."

Donatello seemed to take this as a good sign, and smiled at her. "Well," he said with an almost shy smile, "one way or another, welcome to the fam, Wildcard."

She nearly died of joy. "Saaay, if you're out here, does this mean you finished with your project in the lab?" she asked with a suspicious grin.

"Yes!" he agreed eagerly with a big grin, sounding half his age, and she nearly died of laughing. "I finally managed to figure out how to alternate the polarities! Do you want to see it!?"

"Yes!" she squealed, hopping. "I can!? YES!"

"Okay! Science time after breakfast!" Donatello squealed, too, and, oh, Wildcard got a greater appreciation from how much she still had to look forward to learning about these wonderful people.

Her introduction had only been, as was fitting, _the beginning...!_


	93. Epilogue

[Author's Note: This is, in fact, where this story ends. It is the last chapter. Sequel intended.]

* * *

Wildcard sat at her allotted table in the lab, peering from her computer programming textbook to the laptop. She squinted at the project, and then recognized code where she'd failed to properly use the auto-complete; her foresight had accidentally confused her into thinking she'd already tapped ENTER.

Clickclick, tappity tap, ENTER! There, much better. Click, click, click.

Their robot spider successfully twitched! YES! Progress! Sandro was going to be so proud of her! She was making da tings happenz!

Her phone buzzed and she blinked over at it. Then she grabbed it with both hands.

"Donnie?" Wildcard asked with slowly mounting dread. "The temporary bartender canceled. My dad needs to work tonight."

"Ooh dear," Donatello responded sympathetically right before an arc of electricity exploded from his very unusual torch and rippled up the length of his golden-plated project. He lifted up the welding mask and looked over at her. "Does he have a babysitter for you?"

Wildcard stared bleakly up at Genius Turtle for a few long seconds. "I'm going to end up in New York," she squeaked before interrupting herself with: "No! I'm not allowed!" She dropped her phone and slapped her hands over her face. "DO NOT BOTHER SANDRO AND HIS PARENTS! LET THEM HAVE THEIR DAY TOGETHER. Arglfargl." She kicked her feet, slumped over the table, and rolled slightly from side to side.

"Well... You could stay here," Le Tall Turtle suggested with a naturally shy shrug. "It... it might be good for your psychological rhythm, for example, to stay on the same schedule..."

Disbelieving, Wildcard peeked out hopefully between her fingers.

"Trouble is, I have nothing for you to do." His brows furrowed. "I can't really use your help for _this_ because it's still a prototype, I only have one, and it's still only ninety-five percent predictable. If I shock myself, it's a burn; if you shock you, I'll need to get out the defibrillators. Plus I need to keep working while the glassy ionic structure is still partially malleable..." He bit his lower beak ridge thoughtfully, and then cocked his head her way. "Mikey's scheduled for patrol tonight. Do you want me to tell him he's off the hook?"

Wildcard sat up and thought about it. "I..." She looked at her robot and then up at Donatello. "I mean, if it doesn't sound completely crazy to you, I can entertain myself. I've got the hexapod to work on. There's the dojo and the weight room and video games. I can set up a prank for Sandro to encounter upon opening his door on his return to the domicile... I need to practice some awesome dance moves."

Donatello thought about this, this 'letting her visit with _them all_ ' as opposed to just coming for Sandro's sake and/or lessons.' The idea didn't seem to disagree with him.

He asked, "If you're _sure_ you won't get bored and burn anything to the ground...? You do have to promise me. No arson in my house. No skateboarding in the house. If the catastrophic results of leaving you alone are too great...!"

She rapidly crossed her heart. "I'll be a saint!" she promised.

"Where have I heard that before?" he wondered, but it was with a tolerant smirk as he lowered his welding mask and went back to work.

"I won't break a thing!"

"Oh, yeah," their genius chirped, "heard that one, too."

She stuck out her tongue. Wild was still reveling in her new status as 'Lab-Approved,' where she could come sit in here to do her homework while SCIENCE happened in the background. She wasn't quite Mini-Mikey! She could be a good kid, she could sit still! She'd neither Kaboomed nor accidentally knocked over a single thing in the entire lab, and apparently, for Donatello, that was already as good as people came!

But more truthful would be to say Donnie had really lightened up around her after the introduction. He wasn't all stress and skepticism anymore, and while she might never bond with him the way she had with Mikey, he really did feel like the youthful and involved dad of a close friend or cousin. She liked how light and mischievous his speaking voice was. She liked being invited over to watch him shoot a bolt of plasma into metal while wearing mad scientist goggles and watching sparks fly, yeah, but the change of heart made her feel more welcome than all the lab passes in the world.

* * *

Sandro walked forward to stand alone in the living room of the single bedroom Manhatten Penthouse. He looked around. It occurred to him he didn't have to wear his coat in here, and that he could take it off and fold it beneath one arm.

Cool, salty, ocean air flowed out from over the harbor, though the open balcony doors, across a wide open floor space, and out softly curtained windows. Natural light streamed in, golden or even coppery in October, illuminating swathes of hardwood flooring, and thick rugs.

Absent of any normal domestic furniture, like televisions or couches, the space seemed to have been primarily engineered to house a very large, bored, aggressive turtle. It was set up like a mixed dojo and exercise room, with a punching bag suspended on one side, a Wing Chun wooden striking dummy firmly anchored in place, a bench press, and a neat rack of calisthenic bands and dumbbells all in easy reach. One wall had weapon rack mounted on it, bearing tantos that must have belonged to Sandro's mother, throwing stars, tonfa, an extra pair of sai, a katana, and wooden staves.

Sandro turned slowly, waiting to feel something, glancing through open doors.

On the balcony, there were potted plants, a large range grill, and a glimpse of some device that looked like Donatello's handiwork, like it might be intended to thwart peeping toms and paparazzi. To the right of that, at about ten o'clock was a den—some kind of office room. Sandro could see the clawed foot of a wooden desk supporting numerous computer monitors. He could see the armrest of a computer chair. There were shelves in there, there was a whiteboard, and there was a fancy globe. Most visible of all was the large leather couch covered in heavily knit fabric that was probably designed to protect it from a shell.

Next to the den, at twelve o'clock, was a bathroom, all white and spotless inside, with a big marble white sink peeking in from the left and and the edge of a large Jacuzzi bath tub visible on the right. A lavender scented Glade wall plugin was half empty. At about two o'clock was the master bedroom. What he could see at this angle through the door was mostly just a humidifie, plugged in and hard at work on the ground, but with a step Sandro could see the edge of a king sized bed made of some dark hardwood, with brick red comforters and all the linens and pillowcases matching.

Sandro kept turning; at four o'clock was the little dining room that opened into the living room. There was a hutch in the back filled with all manner of crystal ware glass, genuinely silver silverware, and neat china plates. A large vase stood in the corner, filled with strips of cinnamon bark and other dried plants which made for an alternative to plastic or live flowers and provided naturalistic _po_ _tpourri._ A smaller vase with over a dozen red roses sat on the table. The table looked a little out of place and perhaps had been replaced once; it was cast iron and glass with highly polished fleur de leis and other ornamental patterns ups and down the legs and sides. The four chairs were the giveaway the table was out of place, because they clearly belonged to a set and carved hardwood upholstered in fine manila fabric with a thin gauze embroidery-like pattern over top.

No child had ever lived in this space. It was just too clean.

Either Mom was OCD and scrubbed the place every night after a hard day's work or, more likely, Raphael kept the place neat. Which meant Raphael _was_ neat, which was just one of those many little details Sandro had never known about his family members. Sandro couldn't imagine his parents would have trusted any kind of housekeeping service, even a highly reputable one which knew exactly when it was allowed inside. Housekeeping services just screamed, 'a ninja could infiltrate this.'

He looked to his parents, who lingered almost nervously beside the door and the open-aired kitchen. That kitchen had all its pots and pans suspended from the ceiling, like a show-room kitchen. It had a little islet, it's only barrier from the rest of the living space, with beautiful counter tops and a built in cutting board for food preparation. It had room for four, tall bar stools which came up to it on the far side. The refrigerator was double-doored with a freezer on the bottom.

Sandro wondered at that refrigerator, and about how much or little food it might have contained.

Bringing him here wasn't ever going to have been joyful occasion, and now his parents knew that. They weren't waiting and watching him because they were hoping he'd 'like the place;' they were waiting to see how hard anything might hit him, and whether he'd grow sad or angry.

Bringing him here, like he'd asked them to; this was like an apology. A show-and-tell which answered questions, and brought about closure, and balmed things that had been done for far too long but almost entirely by mistake.

"Why..." Sandro trailed off, a little surprised his voice had broken, because he didn't actually feel any distress or sorrow internally. Maybe it just hadn't hit him yet? "Why, um, why do you own more than two chairs?"

Dumbbells befitting a fairly enormous person were in plain sight of the doorway, after all, which meant April couldn't use her house to entertain corporate guests, not even in a pinch. The inevitable question of 'who on earth owns the largest room in your house?' would be the first question on anyone's mind.

"Well half of that's cause they're usually sold in sets of four; the store don't wanna keep two chairs what ain't matchin' with anythin' on their display floor," Raphael said with the authority of someone who had definitely gone incognito furniture shopping with April at some point, and who knew a great deal more than you'd expect about the matter of purchasing chairs. "But sometimes we have guests fah dinner."

Sandro looked between them in surprise. "Together?"

"Eh, not _normal_ people," Raphael specified.

"Work doesn't leave me with many friends," April assessed a little dryly, thinking back. "Every one I meet fits into one of three categories: strictly business, an undercover plant from a rival newspaper, or a gold digger."

Ha! Oh. Wow. That was right, mom looked single from the outside.

"Ah've met ya mom's personal secretary, her new CEO, and da laundry lady," Dad explained. "Dere's a certain level of people gotta be held in confidence so ya can trust em with shit when ya back is turned, or if ya need em ta cover for ya. One person can't run a whole company on dere own."

"That laundry lady's trouble," April said with a wink. "Your father seems quite taken with her."

"Hey now, well when da old little Jewish lady _didn't_ die of a heart attack da first time she took a gander at all dis," Raphael gestured to himself, "and instead mentioned someone'd been tryin' ta slip contact poison into the sheets and, oh, by da way, did I want ta reuse da towels and be eco-friendly, or should she take em all down for a laundrin', Ah may have possibly fallen in love. Ain't gonna say for sure. She's turnin' eight-five in two weeks, by da way, should we like, leave her a gift? Take her out ta dinnah? How'd dat work?"

"Something like that," April agreed with a perplexed frown and a glance at her phone. "Maybe we should just Google it..."

His parents trailed off a little awkwardly, and Sandro was struck by the synergy between them, by how they _bantered_ a little and played off each other the way other members of his family did... This was a side of them he'd never gotten to see before, except maybe glimpses of it on holidays: They were playful with each other, and they _liked_ each other, and they'd maintained their relationship this long without a reason. He tried to decide if he was angry with them, or bitter about having always _known_ there must have been more to their lives that he'd simply been _kept_ from...

"Are..." Sandro cleared his throat, shuffling his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. "Are you friends with other mutants and stuff?"

"Like 'having-em-ovah-fah-dinnah' friends?" Raphael took the bone he'd just been tossed for exactly what it was. "Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we're part of a biggah network of mutants and superheros, but we's cozy with just a few groups, like da X-Men. Those ain't always people ya wanna be invitin' ta ya Secret Lair, and sharing all ya tricks with, mind ya, but they're people with some of the same problems as ya, in the same boat as ya on a lot of political issues and stuff, and so yeah we got a few people we invite over fah dinner here in da Bird's Nest."

Sandro thought about all this.

"That's your father's name for the apartment," April explained, with quotes, "'The Bird's Nest.'"

"Do any of the supers have children?" Sandro wondered.

"Some of dhem do, mutants and supers both do," Raphael confirmed. "But we ain't met many outside da context of the school. Everybody's got weak scales, kid, shit dhey don't want their enemies ta find out about. Non-combat-prepared loved ones are on da top of dat list, almost every time. Ya mom's rare dat she can put up a fight and I still have ta watch fah danger like a hawk. Anyway, ain't polite conversation ta ask about dat stuff, not unless someone's signallin' dhey's willin ta trust ya."

"Do you have people like that?" Sandro asked. "Friends?"

"Yes," April said, face brightening. "We have exactly _one_ couple, one single couple, which we are friends with _as a couple_ and have dates with and so forth. To this day I have no idea how your father managed it!" Mom explained, her body language animated and wry."Because if you know anything about how absolutely shy Spider Man is around everything from cameras to mutants to super heroes, it is an outright enigma your father managed to even _glimpse_ him, much less convince him and his wife to come over for supper and give us recommendations about someone who might make a _fantastic_ CEO for me."

"We're friends with _Spider Man_?" Sandro disbelieved. Holy Toledo, Wildcard's two favorite comic book universes actually knew one another.

"Yes. Somehow!" Mom confirmed. "I can only assume your father strategically herded him into a completely closed building, set out a gift basket and card reading, 'Hi, we're your new neighbors,' at the only exit, and then backed up to a polite distance of a hundred yards or so to stake out the location for five or six hours, watch what happened, and eventually give a wave of greeting."

"Naw, that's... that's almost exactly what happened," Raphael admitted with a sniff. "Parker reminds me of what would happen if ya multiplied Leo by Donnie. S'like he might as well be a ninja, despite not bein' a ninja, that's how effin' hard he is to notice. And he's wearin' _full saturation blue and red_. Could be hanging over mah head this very instant I wouldn't hear a damn thing. It's enviable. But he's a sweet guy, n' he and his wife'r both hard workers. Dhey's good people. Dhey live out in Queens, so usually we like ta treat em maybe once a month or so."

Leaning back on his heels, Sandro wondered if this might finally explain the great untold mystery of how Uncle Leonardo had ever known anything at all about Wildcard's Aikido lessons. Maybe he'd met 'Ms. Jane,' too.

Sandro was quiet a moment, as his parents awkwardly shuffled in to set down things like purses and bike helmets...

"Ya... want a banana nut protein smoothie?" Raphael asked, opening up that refrigerator to reveal at least the left door of it was well stocked with beef, kale, spinach, sausage, fruit, and cheese.

"Y-yeah," Sandro said, hesitantly looking around the apartment and it's den and exercise equipment and Glade plugins one more time. "Okay."

* * *

Quiet as a cat, Wildcard/Kinpōge tiptoed across the dojo floor. Tip-toe-tip-toe-tip-toe...! She lifted her hands like claws, braced to pounce. Today Sensei was wearing a hip length _haori_ jacket over his kimono, a garment which was not as traditional as it might have liked to be, if only because the back was a dragon's belly of layered fabric. Based on how Raphael had designed most of his family's garments open with braided ropes of fabric across an otherwise naked shell, one simply had to assume shells inflicted a lot of wear, tear, and awkward stretching upon poor, unsuspecting textiles. The design for Sensei's things must have helped protect them from an early grave; maybe Raphael had watched him chew through one too many overlarge mens' kimonos and taken pity.

Kinpōge hovered there behind him, ready to pounce...! Then she dropped her arms to her sides. There was _no way_ Sensei didn't know she was there. Right?

"Senseiii," she droned, coming up to his shell and shoving ineffectually at him. "Are you ignoorrrinng meee?"

No response. Kinpōge tapped his shoulder to get his attention. Still no response! Was Sensei not home?

Oh _my._

Challenge accepted.

"Sensei?" She shook at someone who might as well have been an immobile block of stone, for he was not displaced in any way. Pouting fictitiously, she climbed up into his shell. "Sensei. Sensei? Senseeeii!"

Usually, Leonardo was out of the house by the time Kinpōge had finished with her and Sandro's mid-morning routine of lessons, homework, study, tests, and lunch. Even on the rare day he stayed at home, she'd always had better things to do than check in on where Mr. Invisible Turtle was hanging out or what he might be doing. Her suspicion had always been that Leo spent a lot of his off work time failing to understand the entire premise of his off work time, which was that he should tail, bother, ask questions of, and otherwise spend time with his family.

So when Kinpōge _had_ finally decided she'd take a break from rearranging all of Sandro's snakes and reptiles, and snuck off into the dojo, she had not at all surprised to find her sensei kneeling in seiza, head lowered and hands clasped before him, looking to be deep in either prayer or some kind of meditation. Naturally! Naturally Sensei would assume Donatello didn't want to be bothered, and so wouldn't even enter the lab and _risk_ bothering him.

Well then, she'd just have to do the bothering.

"Sennsseeeiii!" she droned nasally, facing away from him and kicked her heels against his shell because a slap or shove or two was okay, but enough hammering on a shell seemed to drive a turtle batty. It did to Sandro, anyway! "Sensei sensei senseeiiii, don't ignnorreee meeee! Wake up! Meditation is boring, I'm much more interesting!"

Hehe! If Leo had only been 'busy' before, then he was definitely 'intentionally ignoring her out of principle' now.

She clambered all over shoulders and shell, and then flopped over his shoulder to peek at his face. She didn't yell in his ear. Shockingly loud noise might work plenty fine for getting anyone else's attention (and would probably be hilarious to use on Donatello), but right now the idea of breaking out a fog horn, cymbals, and marching band equipment and parading around in circles around him making as much noise as possible, seemed irreverent to the sport of the whole game. So would messing with his beautiful clothing.

"Sensei!" she demanded as if terribly vexed with him. "Play with me!" She hopped in place upon his shoulder, trying to shake him with her weight. "I'm bored! Play with me, play with me, play with me! _Sensei!"_ She rolled over, flopped backwards over his shoulder will her feet on his shell so she could kick her heels into him again. "Sensei! Sennnseeeii!"

Kinpōge slid off his shoulder and into his lap, upside down, and then righted herself and stared suspiciously at his completely blank and tranquil expression. She waved a hand rapidly in front of his face. Nobody could possibly be asleep quite so deeply as that. He _must_ have been able to hear her. "Sensei!" she demanded, ducking around his arms and popping up on the opposite thigh of his lap. "Sensei!" She did not touch the hands he had clasped in prayer. She tugged at his elbow and heaved all of her weight onto the joint. Leo didn't budge.

"Sensei, _play with me_!" she demanded crossly.

Hmph! Well, because he was holding very still, she lifted her hand and touched slowly at the shape of his snout. It was different from Sandro's, wider, more rounded, and without the same sharp line running from nose to chin. More _crocodillian,_ one might say, even if crocodiles didn't have beaks.

Leo should totally not be ignoring the palm of her hand on his face! "Senseei!" she demanded, tapping him on the nose with two fingers and then retracting her hand. She grabbed hold of his shell and climbed back onto his shoulder and shell and kicked her feet in the air. " I will slip ice down the back of your collar, plaaayy with meee! Sennnseeei! Play - With - Meeeeeee!"

Nope. Sensei is not here right now, please leave a message.

"Sensei, you are supposed to take the day off to spend time with other living creatures, and the sakura and your bonsais do not count! PLAY WITH ME!"

A deep breath filled the shell/lungs beneath her.

"Child," Hamato Leonardo finally deigned to acknowledge her. "This is not the way to go about soliciting attention from-"

"I'm bored!" Her foot bopped him in the eyebrow.

He caught hold of her ankle. "I am presently engaged in meditation. Perhaps you desire an education in quieting of the mind?"

"I want to plaaay with youuuuu!" she wailed. "Plaaayyy with meeeeeee!"

"It begins with control of one's breathing," Leonardo said as he pulled her off his shoulder into his lap. She rolled off of him, lunged at him, and climbed on top of him again. "The simplest of exercises begins with breathing in over seven seconds..."

She slooowwwlly stood up, one foot on the apex of his shell. "Senseiii!" she demanded.

"...holding for three seconds..."

She slid to her butt on his shoulders, straddling the back of his neck. "Sensei _pay attention!_ " she wailed dramatically, slapping a hand flat against the back of his shell.

"...and exhaling for nine seconds. The intention is to-"

Kinpōge flopped glumly forward over the top of his head, elbows propped up on his brow. She heaved a despairing sigh which was held for way more than nine seconds.

Sensei was quiet for a moment. Then he took in a silent breath, reached up, grasped a handful of her collar, and pulled her off of himself in a tumble. She frowned displeased up at him.

"Tell me this, child," Leonardo solicited: "If I were to agree to this 'play' activity you are heckling me for, what exactly would that pertain?"

Wildcard perked up like a freshly watered flower, an ecstatic, toothless smile plastered over her face. She beamed at him, and then out at the universe in general, and then she clambered out of Leo's lap and hurried to the rear of the room. She hurried back and sat down, holding a soccer ball.

"You want me to play soccer with you," Leo said, doubtfully.

Smiling mute and wide, Kinpōge innocently bobbed her head.

"Do you know anything at all _about_ soccer?" Leo asked.

Kinpōge shook her head.

Leo contemplated this.

* * *

Donatello paused midway through the day, reasoning he ought to get himself a drink and maybe set out some snacks and see whether Wildcard had trashed the house yet. He left the lab doors unlocked because she'd at least proven she could be respectful of that space.

Before he could turn towards the kitchen, however, the sound of heavy thwacks and laughter caught his ear.

Initially curious and then slowly more disbelieving, Donatello jogged quietly up to the threshold of the dojo and peered in.

He found his eldest brother guarding one far side of the dojo and swiping at a soccer ball with quick kicks as a giggling child tried to maneuver around him. The ball was scooped up on to two-toed feet and bounced onto the heel of the opposite foot, and then Wildcard dove for it with no discernible goal in sight aside from 'Look! Ball!'

"That is not how one plays-!"

She flipped right over a knee that got in her way, chased the ball around him as Leo tried to keep it from her, and then finally grabbed onto the side of his hakama so he couldn't escape her and kicked it out with her heel, which nearly tripped her.

"Ha!" she bellowed anyway.

And Donatello felt a wondrous smirk tug his mouth to the side.

Because Leonardo was _laughing_.

* * *

 _END ... !_

[Author's Note: I intend on a two sequels, one with 'intermediary adventures' and one that picks up when the kids are somewhat older, old enough to begin romance, old enough to begin real adventures. It may take me some time to get to them. Keep your eyes peeled]/p


End file.
